Intelligence analyst are sifting through phone numbers and email addresses found at Osama bin Laden’s compound to determine possible links to Pakistani government and military officials while U.S. officials and analysts increase concern about the safety of Pakistan’s nuclear materials. According to three U.S. intelligence officials, the race is on to recognize what President Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, has called bin Laden’s “support system” inside Pakistan. These sources sought secrecy because they are not authorized to speak to reporters. “My concern now is that we cannot exclude the option that officers in the Pakistani military and the intelligence service were helping to harbor or aware of the site of bin Laden,” said Olli Heinonen, who served as the deputy director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) from 2005 to 2010.
“What is to say they would not help al Qaeda or other terrorist groups to increase access to sensitive nuclear materials such as highly enriched uranium and plutonium?” The U.S. has worried silently about the infiltration of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and military for years. Those concern heightened in fresh months when the CIA learned that bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad was a stone’s throw from Pakistan's military academy. Politico first report this week that CIA Director Leon E. Panetta told member of Congress that bin Laden’s clothing had two phone numbers sewn into it at the time of the attack. Those numbers and other contacts found at the compound are key clues in an attempt to determine what elements of Pakistan’s national security establishment offer support to bin Laden and al Qaeda.
“I can tell you that worry about al Qaeda and other terrorists’ infiltration into the ISI is not new on the part of the Congress or the [George W.] Bush and Obama administrations,” said Rep. Steve Rothman, a New Jersey Democrat who provide on two House Appropriations subcommittees that fund protection and foreign aid. Mr. Rothman has focus top-secret briefings on the Abbottabad raid and the impact of the raid on Afghanistan and Pakistan. “As a matter of course, and for good reason, the materials that were detached from bin Laden’s home in Pakistan are being run down for leads that could assist the United States in apprehending individuals or entity who have required to harm Americans or who have enabled others to harm Americans,” he said.
“What is to say they would not help al Qaeda or other terrorist groups to increase access to sensitive nuclear materials such as highly enriched uranium and plutonium?” The U.S. has worried silently about the infiltration of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and military for years. Those concern heightened in fresh months when the CIA learned that bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad was a stone’s throw from Pakistan's military academy. Politico first report this week that CIA Director Leon E. Panetta told member of Congress that bin Laden’s clothing had two phone numbers sewn into it at the time of the attack. Those numbers and other contacts found at the compound are key clues in an attempt to determine what elements of Pakistan’s national security establishment offer support to bin Laden and al Qaeda.
“I can tell you that worry about al Qaeda and other terrorists’ infiltration into the ISI is not new on the part of the Congress or the [George W.] Bush and Obama administrations,” said Rep. Steve Rothman, a New Jersey Democrat who provide on two House Appropriations subcommittees that fund protection and foreign aid. Mr. Rothman has focus top-secret briefings on the Abbottabad raid and the impact of the raid on Afghanistan and Pakistan. “As a matter of course, and for good reason, the materials that were detached from bin Laden’s home in Pakistan are being run down for leads that could assist the United States in apprehending individuals or entity who have required to harm Americans or who have enabled others to harm Americans,” he said.
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