US says it wants access to bin Laden widows

CHRIS BRUMMITT

Asso­ci­ated Press

ISLAMABAD (AP) — The United States wants access to Osama bin Laden’s three wid­ows and any intel­li­gence mate­r­ial its com­man­dos left behind at the al-Qaida leader’s com­pound, a top Amer­i­can offi­cial said in com­ments broad­cast Sun­day that could add a fresh stick­ing point in already frayed ties with Pakistan.

Infor­ma­tion from the women, who remained in the house after the com­man­dos killed bin Laden, might answer ques­tions about whether Pak­istan har­bored the al-Qaida chief as many Amer­i­can offi­cials are spec­u­lat­ing. It could also reveal details about the day-to-day life of bin Laden, his actions since the inva­sion of Afghanistan in 2001 and the inner work­ings of al-Qaida.

The women, along with sev­eral chil­dren also picked up from the house, are believed to be in Pak­istani army cus­tody. A Pak­istani army offi­cial declined to com­ment Sun­day on the request, which U.S. National Secu­rity Adviser Tom Donilon revealed on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

The CIA and Pakistan’s spy agency, known by the acronym ISI, have worked uneasily together in the past on coun­tert­er­ror­ism, but the uni­lat­eral U.S. raid — done with­out Pakistan’s advance knowl­edge — has exposed the deep mis­trust that scars a com­pli­cated if vital part­ner­ship for both nations.

Even before the May 1 raid, the ISI said it was cut­ting coop­er­a­tion with CIA to protest drone strikes close to the Afghan bor­der, among other things. In the cur­rent envi­ron­ment, Pak­istan could use the fact it has some­thing Wash­ing­ton wants — bin Laden’s wid­ows — as lever­age to reduce some of the pres­sure it is under.

Bin Laden was found in a large house close to a mil­i­tary acad­emy in the army town of Abbot­tabad where he had been liv­ing for up to six years. His loca­tion raised U.S. sus­pi­cions that he had help from some Pak­istani author­i­ties, pos­si­bly ele­ments of the pow­er­ful army and intel­li­gence services.

Donilon said Wash­ing­ton had seen no evi­dence that the Pak­istani gov­ern­ment had been col­lud­ing with bin Laden — the pub­lic line taken by most U.S. offi­cials since the raid, includ­ing Pres­i­dent Barack Obama in com­ments also broad­cast Sunday.

“But they need to inves­ti­gate that,” Donilon said. “And they need to pro­vide us with intel­li­gence, by the way, from the com­pound that they’ve gath­ered, includ­ing access to Osama bin Laden’s three wives, whom they have in … custody.”

Donilon also said Pak­istani author­i­ties had col­lected other evi­dence from the house which the United States wanted to “work with them on assess­ing.” U.S. com­man­dos man­aged to seize a large and valu­able intel­li­gence haul that included videos, tele­phone num­bers and doc­u­ments, along with the body of bin Laden, before fly­ing back to Afghanistan, accord­ing to U.S. officials.

The Pak­istani gov­ern­ment has strongly denied it knew of bin Laden’s where­abouts, but West­ern gov­ern­ments have long regarded Islam­abad with sus­pi­cion. Its armed forces have his­tor­i­cal — some say ongo­ing — links with Islamist mil­i­tants, which they used as prox­ies in Afghanistan and India.

The alle­ga­tions of Pak­istani col­lu­sion pose an acute prob­lem for the Obama admin­is­tra­tion because few can see any alter­na­tive but to con­tinue engag­ing with the coun­try. Unsta­ble and nuclear-armed, it remains inte­gral to the fight against al-Qaida as well as to Amer­i­can hopes for begin­ning to draw down troops in Afghanistan later this year.

“We need to act in our national inter­est,” Donilon said. “We have had dif­fi­culty with Pak­istan, as I said. But we’ve also had to work very closely with Pak­istan in our counter-terror efforts.”

The Amer­i­can com­man­dos killed bin Laden and up to four other peo­ple, includ­ing one of his sons, at the compound.

Pak­istani offi­cials have given lit­tle infor­ma­tion, some of it con­flict­ing, about the iden­ti­ties of the women and chil­dren left behind, includ­ing exactly how many there are and what they allegedly have been saying.

One of the wives is Yemeni, Pak­istani offi­cials have said. A copy of her pass­port, leaked to the local media, iden­ti­fies her as Amal Ahmed Abdull­fat­tah. She has allegedly told Pak­istani inves­ti­ga­tors that she moved to the home in 2006 and never left the upper floors of the three-story com­pound, where bin Laden was living.

She is from the south­ern Yemeni province of Ibb, about 120 miles (193 kilo­me­ters) south of the cap­i­tal, Sanaa. A fam­ily mem­ber there has sought a meet­ing with Pakistan’s ambas­sador to Yemen to ask about her fate and whether she is to return to Yemen. The rel­a­tive, a cousin named Walid al-Sada, said the ambas­sador did not know and promised to get back to the family.

Pak­istan For­eign Min­istry spokes­woman Tah­mina Jan­jua said no coun­tries have asked for the return of bin Laden’s rel­a­tives. The For­eign Min­istry in a state­ment last week said they were being well looked after and will be returned to their coun­tries of origin.

When the Navy SEALs raided bin Laden’s com­pound, they col­lected com­puter equip­ment and videos, includ­ing one that showed bin Laden hud­dled in a blan­ket and wear­ing a knit cap while seated on the floor watch­ing tele­vi­sion — an image that con­trasts with the bin Laden seen in pro­pa­ganda videos released over the years, which depicted him as a charis­matic reli­gious fig­ure unaf­fected by the world’s scorn.

But many Pak­ista­nis, who are rou­tinely mis­led by their gov­ern­ment and live in a coun­try where tele­vi­sion and news­pa­pers report con­spir­acy the­o­ries about the malign inten­tions of the United States uncrit­i­cally, don’t believe bin Laden has died.

“I think Osama did not die,” said Moham­mad Khan at a news­pa­per kiosk in Rawalpindi city. “I don’t believe even 1 per­cent that he was mar­tyred in Abbot­tabad. The mak­ing of a video is not a big thing for Amer­ica. They can do what they want because they have the lat­est tech­nol­ogy. They can make impos­si­ble things seem possible.”