Fourteen years after al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was killed by US Navy SEALs in a covert operation in Abbottabad, the shadow of his presence nonetheless looms giant over Pakistan’s safety narrative. And within the newest flip of irony solely Pakistan’s army institution might serve up, the ghost of bin Laden is again—this time, via bloodlines.Learn: India-Pakistan Pressure – stay updates On the centre of the present controversy is Lieutenant Normal Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, the suave and media-trained Director Normal of Inter-Providers Public Relations (ISPR), the Pakistani army’s propaganda wing. Whereas Gen Chaudhry has grow to be the face of Pakistan’s official messaging following the Indian army’s Operation Sindoor—a retaliatory strike that worn out 9 terror camps throughout Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir—the scrutiny has shifted to his father: Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood, a nuclear scientist who as soon as had tea and theological debates with none apart from Osama bin Laden.Sure, the identical bin Laden who was later discovered and killed in a compound only a stone’s throw from the Pakistan Navy Academy, elevating severe questions on how such a high-value goal might disguise in plain sight.
A Father, a Nuclear Scientist, and an Notorious Assembly
Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood was not simply any nuclear scientist. He performed key roles in Pakistan’s Kahuta Enrichment Plant and Chashma Nuclear Challenge. After retiring, he based an organisation known as Ummah Tameer-e-Nau (UTN), which, amongst different issues, proposed—earnestly—utilizing djinns to supply electrical energy. Someplace alongside this delusional path, he additionally met with bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri in Afghanistan months earlier than 9/11.US intelligence businesses had been alarmed by the chance {that a} Pakistani nuclear scientist had direct entry to al-Qaeda management. Mahmood was picked up, questioned, and later launched. However the harm was finished: he was positioned on Pakistan’s Exit Management Checklist and have become a logo of how porous the partitions are between Pakistan’s scientific, army, and extremist circles.Now, his son—Lt Gen Chaudhry—is spearheading Pakistan’s info warfare whereas claiming victimhood. As AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi put it: “Osama bin Laden was discovered taking shelter in a army space of Pakistan. It’s for the Western world to understand that Pakistan is a failed state… their nuclear bombs should be disarmed.”A Lengthy Line of Terror EntanglementsThe bin Laden saga is only one chapter in a thick quantity of accusations:
- The 2008 Mumbai assaults, which killed over 170 folks, had been carried out by Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a Pakistan-based group whose handlers operated with ISI help. The trial within the US of David Headley confirmed ISI’s hyperlinks to the attackers.
- The 2005 London bombings had connections to people who skilled in Pakistan’s tribal areas. British intelligence later revealed that the perpetrators had been radicalised and skilled in madrassas and camps in Pakistan.
- Pulwama 2019, the place 40 Indian CRPF jawans had been killed, was claimed by Jaish-e-Mohammed, one other Pakistan-based group. Regardless of world stress, Islamabad neither shut down the group’s operations nor arrested its management meaningfully.
- Daniel Pearl’s 2002 beheading was orchestrated by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed—who was captured in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, in 2003. Once more, inside spitting distance of Pakistani army installations.
- Abu Zubaydah, Ramzi Yousef, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed—all main al-Qaeda operatives—had been captured in Pakistan, typically residing comfortably with ISI safety, till they weren’t.
Even at present, Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) stay breeding grounds for Taliban offshoots, al-Qaeda remnants, and extra lately, Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which has carried out a number of assaults inside Pakistan itself.
