Leaked report lambasts failures on bin Laden

PAKISTAN: Collective failures, incompetence and negligence by Pakistan allowed Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden to live in the country undetected for more than nine years, a leaked report says.

The report by a Pakistani Judicial Commission also reveals new details about the US raid that killed bin Laden and intriguing details about his life on the run, including that he wore a cowboy hat to evade detection by US satellites.

CIA spies tracked down bin Laden to the northwestern town of Abbottabad, where he was shot dead by US Navy SEALs on May 2, 2011 during the dramatic raid near Pakistan's military academy.

The government set up the judicial commission shortly after the raid to investigate after parliament demanded an independent enquiry.

It interviewed senior civilian and military officials and bin Laden's three widows before they were deported to Saudi Arabia. But its findings were kept secret until the Al-Jazeera news network published them on Monday.

The commission said it had found nothing to support allegations of complicity but neither could it rule out the possibility of "'plausibly deniable' support" from current or former officials.

The 336-page report included new information about bin Laden's day-to-day life after he fled the 2001 US-led invasion of Afghanistan, arriving in Pakistan in the spring or summer of 2002.

AFP