Abbottabad is one of my favourite towns in Pakistan. From Islamabad it’s a two hours’ drive. There are the Margalla Hills in between and one has to go around the hills to reach the town. It is a hilly town but not a hill station, like Murree, as it is not located at a high altitude and it does not snow there. The Karakoram Highway leading to China passes through it.
The hallmark of Abbottabad, however, remains the Kakul Military Academy, spread over thousands of acres in a beautiful setting; all the officers to the Pakistan Army graduate from it as it is the sole academy; the one located near Mangla Dam is ranked lower in hierarchy.
There is hardly any security in Abbottabad, unlike in other major cities, which usually have innumerable checkpoints. There is a constant flow of traffic Mansehra Road, which is a main road. The road gets its name as it leads to Mansehra and from there to Gilgit and China.
Osama bin Laden was living close to the main road and the military academy in an underdeveloped residential area called Tanda Choa and Bilal Town, with his three wives and 23 children. The media is calling his house a mansion but it appears to be an ugly structure, except that it is located on eight kanals of land, which is quite big by Pakistani standards. This perhaps explains as to why some are calling the house eight times bigger than the normal ones in the locality.
What is mind-boggling is that how the intelligence agencies failed to ever inquire as to what was located inside this fortress-like structure.
The authorities to an extent have been able to control attacks on important targets but have failed to completely rout terrorism from the country; madrassas continue to operate as before and the military remains reluctant to enter North Waziristan, despite intense American pressure to rein the Haqqani network.
The National Counterterrorism Center’s (NCTC) role in the killing of bin Laden is payback of sorts for the US intelligence community, which was criticised for its failure to prevent the 9/11 attacks; when a lack of coordination kept intelligence officers from fitting together known pieces of the plot. After 9/11, a presidential commission recommended the establishment of a new agency to unify strategic intelligence and operational planning against Islamic terrorists. The NCTC became operational by 2004.
The question, however, remains as to how Osama had been able to live in relative comfort in Pakistan for so many years. This is a difficult question and so far remains unanswered.
Pakistan is bearing the brunt from both sides. The US is blaming it for not doing enough, if not actually sheltering Osama; the terrorists are blaming the government of Pakistan and calling for retribution against its leaders.
Life otherwise remains normal in the country as one would define it here and security remains low-key. One only hopes that it is not a lull before a storm and Osama’s elimination ends a chapter of terrorism in Pakistan.