New York Times: Seized Phone Offers Clues to Bin Ladens Pakistani Links
Wikipedia page for Harakat-ul-Mujahedeen
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan The cellphone of Osama bin Ladens trusted courier, which was recovered in the raid that killed both men in Pakistan last month, contained contacts to a militant group that is a longtime asset of Pakistans intelligence agency, senior American officials who have been briefed on the findings say.
The discovery indicates that Bin Laden used the group, Harakat-ul-Mujahedeen, as part of his support network inside the country, the officials and others said. But it also raised tantalizing questions about whether the group and others like it helped shelter and support Bin Laden on behalf of Pakistans spy agency, given that it had mentored Harakat and allowed it to operate in Pakistan for at least 20 years, the officials and analysts said.
In tracing the calls on the cellphone, American analysts have determined that Harakat commanders had called Pakistani intelligence officials, the senior American officials said. One said they had met. The officials added that the contacts were not necessarily about Bin Laden and his protection and that there was no smoking gun showing that Pakistans spy agency had protected Bin Laden.
But the cellphone numbers provide one of the most intriguing leads yet in the hunt for the answer to an urgent and vexing question for Washington: How was it that Bin Laden was able to live comfortably for years in Abbottabad, a town dominated by the Pakistani military and only a three-hour drive from Islamabad, the capital?
Its a serious lead, said one American official, who has been briefed in broad terms on the cellphone analysis. Its an avenue were investigating.
The revelation also provides a potentially critical piece of the puzzle about Bin Ladens secret odyssey after he slipped away from American forces in the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan nearly 10 years ago. It may help answer how and why Bin Laden or his protectors chose Abbottabad, where he was killed in a raid by a Navy Seals team on May 2.
Harakat has especially deep roots in the area around Abbottabad, and the network provided by the group would have enhanced Bin Ladens ability to live and function in Pakistan, analysts familiar with the group said. Its leaders have strong ties with both Al Qaeda and Pakistani intelligence, and they can roam widely because they are Pakistanis, something the foreigners who make up Al Qaedas ranks cannot do.
Even today, the groups leader, Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil, long one of Bin Ladens closest Pakistani associates, lives unbothered by Pakistani authorities on the outskirts of Islamabad.
Wielding a Militant Tool
Harakat is one of a host of militant groups set up in the 1980s and early 90s with the approval and assistance of Pakistans premier spy agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, to fight as proxies in Afghanistan, initially against the Soviets, or against India in the disputed territory of Kashmir. Like many groups, it has splintered and renamed itself over the years, and because of their overlapping nature, other groups could have been involved in supporting Bin Laden, too, officials and analysts said. But Harakat, they said, has been a favored tool of the ISI.
Harakat is one of the oldest and closest allies of Al Qaeda, and they are very, very close to the ISI, said Bruce O. Riedel, a former Central Intelligence Agency officer and the author of Deadly Embrace: Pakistan, America, and the Future of the Global Jihad.
The question of ISI and Pakistani Army complicity in Bin Ladens hide-out now hangs like a dark cloud over the entire relationship between Pakistan and the United States, Mr. Riedel added.
Indeed, suspicions abound that the ISI or parts of it sought to hide Bin Laden, perhaps to keep him as an eventual bargaining chip, or to ensure that billions of dollars in American military aid would flow to Pakistan as long as Bin Laden was alive.
Both the chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Representative Mike Rogers, Republican of Michigan, and the panels ranking Democrat, Representative C. A. Dutch Ruppersberger of Maryland, said this month that they believed that some members of the ISI or the Pakistani Army, either retired or on active duty, were involved in harboring Bin Laden.
Bin Laden himself had a long history with the ISI, dating to the mujahedeen insurgency that the Americans and Pakistanis supported against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
Two former militant commanders and one senior fighter who have received support from the ISI for years said they were convinced that the ISI played a part in sheltering Bin Laden. Because of their covert existence, they spoke on the condition that their names not be used.
One of the commanders belonged to Harakat. The other said he had fought as a guerrilla and trained others for 15 years while on the payroll of the Pakistani military, until he quit a few years ago. He said that he had met Bin Laden twice.
Wikipedia page for Harakat-ul-Mujahedeen