Pakistan: We Told U.S. About Bin Laden Compound

Philip Shenon at The Daily Beast writes:

Did Pakistan’s spy agency alert the CIA two years ago that there was something suspicious about the compound where Osama bin Laden was tracked down and killed? Was it intelligence from the Pakistan government that finally led the U.S. to Bin Laden?

Those were the claims of the Pakistani government today, fighting back against accusations that it ignored evidence of the presence of Bin Laden and his family – apparently for years – in a large home only a stone’s throw from the military academy that is Pakistan’s equivalent of West Point.

In a statement released to The Daily Beast by the Pakistani Foreign Ministry, the government said that it had been sharing specific intelligence with the CIA about the compound since 2009 and that Abbottabad, the northern Pakistani city when Bin Laden was found, has been “under sharp focus of intelligence agencies since 2003” because of reports of the presence of Al Qaeda fighters.

“The intelligence flow indicating some foreigners in the surroundings of Abbottabad continued until mid-April 2011,” the statement said. “It is important to highlight that taking advantage of much superior technological assets, CIA exploited the intelligence leads given by us to identify and reach Osama Bin Laden.”

A CIA spokeswoman said she was aware of the Pakistani statement but had no immediate comment on it. A White House spokeswoman also had no comment. But U.S. government officials have long expressed skepticism about many of their Pakistani counterparts’ claims of their cooperation in aiding America’s efforts against al Qaeda.

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