Days after Pulitzer Prize-winning author Seymour Hersh claimed that the United States' version of the raid that killed Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was a sham, Pakistani military officials have reportedly named the spy, who disclosed Laden's whereabouts to the United States.
Hersh had claimed in an article published in the latest issue of the London Review of Books that in 2006, Laden was under Pakistani control, kept in Abbottabad with the financial assistance of Saudi Arabia. He argued that the Pakistani officials allowed the U.S. to conduct a raid, "a de facto assassination," after American officials found out about Bin Laden's whereabouts through a source in Pakistani intelligence.
Hersh said that the a deal was then struck that allowed the U.S. to set up a detailed surveillance of the area, obtaining DNA evidence confirming Laden's identity and even providing a Pakistani agent to help guide the operation, in lieu of continued financial support of the nation's intelligence service and its leaders.
The allegations were largely attributed by Hersh to a single source, identified only as "a retired senior US intelligence official," who claimed that Laden's location was disclosed to the U.S. by a Pakistani spy seeking a slice of a 25 million dollar reward, reported The Independent.
Now, prominent Pakistani journalist and investigations editor for The News International, Amir Mir, has said that "well-informed intelligence circles" in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, had named retired Brigadier Usman Khlalid as the spy. Khalid also allegedly persuaded Dr Shakil Afridi to pose as a polio campaigner and attain DNA proof to confirm Laden's presence in the Abbottabad compound.
Hersh claimed that the Pakistani informant, claimed to be Khalid, and his family were smuggled out of Pakistan and relocated in the Washington area, adding that he now worked as a consultant for the CIA.
The White House has always maintained that the Al Qaeda leader was killed in a secret mission in 2011 without the knowledge or assistance of the government of Pakistan.
