A year after bin Laden raid, Pakistan still harbors America's biggest enemies

ISLAMABAD – A year after Osama bin Laden was found and killed, Pakistan still harbors, willingly or unwillingly, America’s greatest enemies: current al-Qaida chief Ayman al-Zawahiri and Afghan insurgent leaders Sirajuddin Haqqani and Mullah Mohammad Omar.

Pakistani Islamist leader Hafiz Saeed was added to that list in March, when the United States offered $10 million for his capture.

What is striking, say analysts, is how little has changed in Pakistan a year after U.S. special forces burst into a large house in Abbottabad in the early hours of May 2, 2011, and shot bin Laden dead.

Pakistan’s security establishment remains addicted to using, or at least tolerating, Islamic extremist groups as its proxy warriors, despite the deaths of thousands of Pakistani civilians and soldiers and the humiliation of bin Laden being found just steps from the country’s premier military academy. While the country is fighting some jihadi groups such as the so-called Pakistani Taliban, which is broadly affiliated with al-Qaida, others are still apparently regarded as “good Taliban.”

The latest incarnation of the pro-state jihadi is an alliance of fire-breathing mullahs, many associated with banned militant groups, called Difa-e-Pakistan, or Defense of Pakistan Council.

Pakistani thinking about the utility of jihadi actors, especially those operating across its western border, is shaped by the impending 2014 deadline for the withdrawal of U.S. combat forces from Afghanistan, said Ayesha Siddiqa, an analyst and author of “Military Inc.: Inside Pakistan’s Military Economy.”

“With 2014 round the corner, you don’t expect the establishment now to give up on them (jihadi groups),” Siddiqa said. “Nothing has changed since May last year.”

The question of whether Pakistani officials helped hide bin Laden is still unanswered. But even if there were no official complicity, Pakistan’s ambivalent policy toward violent extremists would have provided the al-Qaida leader with an enabling environment, analysts say.

The world’s most wanted man was found living in a garrison town less than a mile from Pakistan’s elite military academy. It’s clear now from testimony that his captured wives gave Pakistani interrogators that since December 2001, when he fled the U.S.-led attack on Afghanistan, bin Laden spent almost his entire time in Pakistan.

American intelligence believes that al-Zawahiri, who was bin Laden’s deputy and succeeded him last year, also is likely somewhere in Pakistan. John Brennan, deputy national security adviser, told CNN Sunday that al-Zawahiri “as well as other al-Qaida leaders continue to burrow into areas of the FATA, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan.”

The U.S. has always maintained that Taliban founder and leader Mullah Omar has had refuge in Pakistan since he fled Afghanistan in late 2001. He was supposedly in the western town of Quetta initially, but he could now be elsewhere in the sparsely populated Baluchistan province, or melted into the chaotic megacity of Karachi.

Sirajuddin Haqqani, who took over command of the Haqqani network from his father, Jalaluddin, a veteran Pakistan-backed jihadist, spends most of his time in North Waziristan, part of the FATA, the rugged, isolated region along the Afghan border, U.S. intelligence believes. The Haqqanis have been blamed for some of the most spectacular attacks on U.S. and allied targets in Kabul in recent years.

Many here argue that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency could find Omar or Haqqani if it wanted to, but they have concluded that for now it’s not in the ISI’s interests to do so. Many believe that the ISI was behind the revival of the Taliban after their 2001 defeat – a claim made, for instance, in the recently published book by leading Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid, “Pakistan on the Brink.”

Hafiz Saeed is in a different category in that he lives openly in Lahore, Pakistan’s second largest city. He founded, and by some accounts still runs, Lashkar-e-Taiba, an armed extremist group blamed for the 2008 terrorist assault on the Indian city of Mumbai, in which 164 people, including six American citizens, were killed.

Yet Saeed is able to appear openly on behalf of Difa-e-Pakistan, which has been hosting virulently anti-American rallies around the country. Difa-e-Pakistan’s leading figures include Sami ul Haq, whose madrassa in northwest Pakistan is a university for jihadis, including the Taliban, and Fazlur Rehman Khalil, who was one of the five signatories in 1998 to bin Laden’s World Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders.

“The real challenge now is not ‘al-Qaida Central’ but organizations like Difa-e-Pakistan,” said Imtiaz Gul, author of “The Most Dangerous Place.” “Al-Qaida in Pakistan’s border region is dispersed. Groups like the TTP (Pakistani Taliban) are mercenaries and are not socially networked. But people like Hafiz Saeed and Difa-e-Pakistan have a social base.”

Obama: Marking death isn’t ‘celebration’

WASHINGTON (AP) – President Barack Obama gave a steely defense of his handling of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden and his use of it to burnish his re-election credentials a year later, saying Monday that it is appropriate to mark an anniversary that Republicans charge is being turned into a campaign bumper sticker.

He then jumped at the chance to portray presumed Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney as unprepared to make the kind of hard call required to send U.S. forces on that highly risky mission. Without mentioning Romney by name, Obama recommended looking at people’s previous statements on the manhunt for the 9/11 mastermind.

Obama’s re-election team has seized on a quote from Romney in 2007, when he said it was not worth moving heaven and earth to go after one person. On Monday, Romney said he “of course” would have ordered bin Laden killed, but his campaign criticized Obama for turning the successful death raid to political gain.

“I assume that people meant what they said when they said it,” Obama said at a White House news conference. “That’s been at least my practice. I said that I’d go after bin Laden if we had a clear shot at him, and I did. If there are others who have said one thing and now suggest they’d do something else, then I’d go ahead and let them explain it.”

Obama is using the May 2 anniversary to help maximize a political narrative that portrays him as bold and decisive. Romney has sought to cast Obama as weak and too quick to compromise on other foreign policy matters, including Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Obama and his national security team will be featured in an NBC prime-time special Wednesday night that reconstructs the operation from inside the White House Situation Room. White House counterterrorism chief John Brennan discussed Obama’s command of the raid on a Sunday talk show and in a speech Monday.

“The death of bin Laden was our most strategic blow yet against al-Qaida,” Brennan said at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington.

Credit goes to the special forces who carried out the raid and the intelligence experts who led them to the hideout, Brennan said, “and to President Obama, who gave the order to go in.”

Bin Laden was killed in Pakistan by U.S. Navy SEALs. The terror leader was living in a compound outside the capital of Islamabad, having evaded capture for nearly 10 years.

Obama sent in the U.S. forces with no assurance that bin Laden was at the site, leading to a heart-pounding scene in the Situation Room that was captured in one of the most famous photos of Obama’s presidency.

“It’s unfortunate that President Obama would prefer to use what was a good day for all Americans as a cheap political ploy and an opportunity to distort Gov. Romney’s strong policies on the war on terror,” Romney campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul said Monday. “President Obama’s feckless foreign policy has emboldened our adversaries, weakened our allies, and threatens to break faith with our military.”

Romney was scheduled to appear Tuesday in New York City with firefighters and former Mayor Rudy Giuliani to help mark Wednesday’s anniversary of bin Laden’s death.

“I hardly think you’ve seen any excessive celebration taking place here,” Obama said at the news conference with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda. His voice was taut and his smile thin.

“I think that people, the American people, rightly remember what we as a country accomplished in bringing to justice somebody who killed over 3,000 of our citizens.”

In 2007, Romney told The Associated Press that it was not worth “moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person.”

In a debate days later, he clarified the remark: “We’ll move everything to get him. But I don’t want to buy into the Democratic pitch that this is all about one person — Osama bin Laden — because after we get him, there’s going to be another and another,” Romney said.

Romney was critical of then-candidate Obama’s vow to strike al-Qaida targets inside Pakistan if necessary. Obama said at the time that he would be willing to launch military strikes inside Pakistan with or without the government’s approval.

Ultimately, that’s exactly what Obama did to get bin Laden. The decision outraged Pakistan’s U.S.-backed civilian government and fanned anti-U.S. sentiment across the country.

Romney and his advisers suggested Monday that the decision to order the raid was an easy one.

“Even Jimmy Carter would have given that order,” Romney said Monday following a campaign appearance in New Hampshire.

Romney probably meant that as a jab at the Democratic record on foreign policy generally, but invoking Carter may actually cloud Romney’s message.

Carter demonstrated how dangerous and politically perilous such decisions can be when he ordered an attempt to rescue American hostages held in Iran.

The 1980 mission ultimately embarrassed the nation, ending with the death of eight servicemen and the loss of several American helicopters. The hostage crisis lasted more than a year and helped deny Carter a second term.

If the bin Laden raid had gone similarly awry, Obama would have been badly damaged by a military debacle on top of the country’s economic woes.

A spokeswoman for Carter did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Romney: I would have ordered death

PORTSMOUTH, N.H. (AP) – Once a moment of national unity, the political battle over Osama bin Laden’s death intensified Monday as presumptive Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney sought to minimize the role President Barack Obama has carved out for himself in killing the terrorist leader.

The president’s re-election campaign has raised questions about Romney’s willingness to assassinate the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington.

Romney pushed back Monday, telling members of the media “of course” he would have made the same decision.

Obama authorized the U.S. military raid in Pakistan that ended with bin Laden’s death after a decade in hiding one year ago this week.

Romney pushed back Monday, saying “of course” he would have made the same decision.

“Even Jimmy Carter would have given that order,” Romney said, referencing the former president in his answer to a reporter’s question after a campaign appearance in New Hampshire.

Romney was scheduled to appear Tuesday in New York City with firefighters and former Mayor Rudy Giuliani to help mark Wednesday’s anniversary of bin Laden’s death. Obama and his national security team will be featured in a NBC prime-time special Wednesday night that reconstructs the operation from inside the White House Situation Room.

Obama said Monday that the anniversary is a time for reflection, not celebration.

“I hardly think you’ve seen any excessive celebration taking place here,” he said at a White House news conference. “I think that people, the American people, rightly remember what we as a country accomplished in bringing to justice somebody who killed over 3,000 of our citizens.”

But Obama is using the successful military operation to help maximize a political narrative that portrays him as having the courage to make the tough calls his opponent might not.

Bin Laden was killed his compound in Abbottabod, Pakistan, by U.S. Navy SEALs after evading capture for nearly 10 years.

Obama sent in the U.S. forces with no assurance that bin Laden was at the site, leading to a heart-pounding scene in the Situation Room that was captured in one of the most famous photos of Obama’s presidency.

But Romney and his advisers suggested Monday that the decision to order the raid was an easy one. In evoking Carter, however, Romney may have clouded his message.

Carter demonstrated how dangerous such decisions can be when he ordered an attempt to rescue American hostages held in Iran. The 1980 mission ultimately embarrassed the nation, ending with the death of eight servicemen and the loss of several American helicopters. The hostage crisis lasted more than a year and helped deny Carter a second term.

On Sunday, Obama campaign adviser Robert Gibbs said it was unclear whether Romney would have made the same decision as Obama.

“Look, just a few years ago, President Obama — then a candidate — said in a speech that if we had actionable intelligence of a high-value target in Pakistan, we’d go in and get that high value target,” Gibbs said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” ‘’Mitt Romney said that was foolish. He wouldn’t do such a thing. That he wouldn’t move heaven and earth to get Osama bin Laden.”

Obama’s campaign last week released a video featuring former President Bill Clinton that seeks to reinforce Gibbs’ doubts about what Romney would have done in that situation. “Which path would mitt Romney have taken?” the video asks.

Democrat Arianna Huffington, founder and editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post, said the campaign ad went too far.

“I think it’s one thing to celebrate the fact that they did such a great job. All that is perfectly legitimate,” she said on CBS’ “This Morning.” ‘’But to turn it into a campaign ad is one of the most despicable things you can do.”

Former New Hampshire Gov. John H. Sununu, a key Romney supporter who was chief of staff in the first Bush White House, said Obama is wrongly taking credit for bin Laden’s killing. Sununu said the decision to strike was ultimately made by a Navy admiral.

“It’s wrong in taking credit and it’s wrong in implying that someone else would not have made the same decision,” Sununu said before Romney addressed a crowd on Portsmouth Fish Pier. “There is no way that anyone sitting in that White House would not have at least done what he did.”