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LEON PANETTA
POSTED BY EIZ ON THURSDAY, 19 JANUARY, 2012, 7:14 AM
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The comments by US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta were the first public confirmation of a part of
the bin Laden operation reported by McClatchy Newspapers last July, about how the CIA used
Shakil Afridi to try to establish whether the al-Qaida leader ...
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LEON PANETTA
POSTED BY EIZ ON THURSDAY, 19 JANUARY, 2012, 7:14 AM
LAHORE, Pakistan -- A senior American
official has for the first time admitted that a
Pakistani doctor played a key role in
tracking Osama bin Laden to his hideout
in northern Pakistan, and called for his
release.
The comments by U.S. Defense Secretary
Leon Panetta were the first public
confirmation of a part of the bin Laden
operation reported by McClatchy
Newspapers last July, about how the CIA
used Shakil Afridi to try to establish
whether the al-Qaida leader was really living in a large house in Abbottabad, northern Pakistan.
Afridi has been in Pakistani custody since the country’s own spy agency, Inter Services Intelligence
(ISI), learned of the secret task performed by the doctor, who set up a fake vaccination program in
Abbottabad to get DNA samples of those at the compound.
The CIA was never certain that bin Laden was present in the house. Afridi worked for the American
intelligence agency in the weeks leading up to the May 2 U.S. Navy Seals raid, setting up an
elaborate scheme that was supposedly going house to house to vaccinate residents in
Abbottabad.
Panetta, in an interview for CBS’s 60 Minutes Sunday night, also voiced his belief that elements
within Pakistan must have known that bin Laden, or at least someone significant, was present at
the compound.
“I am very concerned about what the Pakistanis did with this individual (Afridi). This was an
individual who, in fact, helped provide intelligence that was very helpful with regard to this
operation,” Panetta said.
The fate of the doctor has become another source of tension between Islamabad and Washington,
with American officials pressing Pakistan to free him so he and his family can be resettled in the
United States.
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