Musharraf jogged past Osama’s Abbottabad compound during military training
May 4th, 2011 - 3:18 pm ICT by ANI
London, May 4(ANI): Former Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has said that he frequently ran by the area in which Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden had been living for the last six years.
Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, who had evaded capture for a decade, was killed Sunday night in a top secret operation involving a small team of US Special Forces in Abbottabad city, located 50 kilometres northeast of Islamabad and 150 kilometres east of Peshawar.
Musharraf said that when he was training in the military, he used to go running right where the world’s most wanted terrorist was found.
Bin Laden was discovered in a compound that was custom-built in 2005, and located just a few hundred yards from the Pakistan Military Academy, described as Pakistan’s Sandhurst or West Point.
The Abbottabad city is home to thousands of soldiers, and is under government control.
“It surprises me it was next to the Pakistan military academy,” The Telegraph quoted Musharraf, as saying.
“The location is next to the place where I used to run nine miles, en route, maybe passing in front of the house. That is surprising,” he added.
Musharraf’s comments raise the prospect that military cadets regularly ran past bin Laden’s compound.
Whistleblower website ‘Wikileaks’ has also revealed that US troops were stationed just a few hundred yards from Bin Laden’s Abbottabad compound in Pakistan in 2008.
The revelation, which came from the Guantánamo files, suggested that the US might have received the intelligence about the dreaded terrorist’s presence there as early as 2008, The Guardian reports.
The US soldiers were due to perform a routine ‘Training-of-Trainers’ for Pakistan’s 70,000-strong federal military unit, the Frontier Corps.
The information about the US troops is contained in the account of a meeting in Washington between the-then US Deputy Secretary of State, John Negroponte, and Pakistan’s Foreign Minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, discussing security co-operation and concerns across the country.
The cable also said that the US forces might have visited the town months later for a second time.
Abbottabad is reportedly the only town that had not been often mentioned in the 250,000 leaked embassy cables. (ANI)
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- Experts don't buy 'ISI didn't know of Osama's presence in Abbottabad' story - May 03, 2011
- Rocket fired near Pakistan Military Academy - Jan 27, 2012
- Osama's stay in Abbottabad without support system in Pak "inconceivable": Brennan - May 03, 2011
- Pak highlights 'significant role' in counter-terrorism efforts - May 02, 2011
- Raid to kill Osama near Islamabad doesn't bode well for Pak: US official - May 02, 2011
- 'ISI must be utterly stupid to harbour Osama at Abbottabad': Musharraf - May 04, 2011
- Osama death: Pak says raid 'in accordance with declared US policy' - May 02, 2011
- Osama's wife says family was living at Abbottabad compound since 2005: Source - May 04, 2011
- Musharraf says he would not have allowed US operation to kill Osama - May 02, 2011
- Financial aid to Pak must be stalled until its stance on 'war on terror' clear: US Senator - May 03, 2011
- Rockets fired at Pakistan Military Academy (Second Lead) - Jan 27, 2012
- Pak military says it was not forewarned about US strike on Bin Laden - May 03, 2011
- Countdown to Osama's end - May 02, 2011
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