In addition to Amal al Sadah and her children Ibrahim, about 8, Asia, around 7, Zainab, around 5, and Hussain, around 3, Pakistan is holding Osama's Saudi wives Khairiah, aged around 62, and Siham, around 54, and four of Osama's grandchildren. The grandchildren are believed to be the children of Obama and Siham's son Khalid bin Laden, who was killed in the raid.
Yemen has recommended the return of Amal al Sadah. The Saudis don't seem to be in favor of the return of his other wives.
What do the Pakistani's want with the widows? Perhaps more information about Hamza bin Laden, the son who remains unaccounted for and may have escaped the raid.
A Pakistani intelligence source told The Telegraph that the widows' testimony, as well as differing accounts of what happened during the raid, meant they could not account for one person who they believe had been living at the house.
"We don't know if it was his son. Someone, one person, may have been in the compound that we now cannot account for if we believe what we are being told," the source said.
Or perhaps they think the women know something about Osama bin Laden's alleged ISI handler, former Brigadier General Ijaz Shah. Former CIA official Bruce Reidel writes in the Daily Beast about the allegation of former Army Chief Ziauddin Khwaja that Musharraf knew where Bin Laden was staying.
Ziauddin says that the safe house in Abbottabad was made to order for bin Laden by another Pakistani intelligence officer, Brig. Gen. Ijaz Shah, who was the ISI bureau head in Lahore when Musharraf staged his coup. Musharraf later made him head of the intelligence bureau, the ISI’s rival in Pakistan’s spy-versus-spy wars. Ziauddin says Ijaz Shah was responsible for setting up bin Laden in Abbottabad, ensuring his safety and keeping him hidden from the outside. And Ziauddin says Musharraf knew all about it.
Reidel says the information was first reported in the Militant Leadership Monitor. (See here.)
Former Pakistani Army Chief General Ziauddin Butt (a.k.a. General Ziauddin Khawaja) revealed at a conference on Pakistani-U.S. relations in October 2011 that according to his knowledge the then former Director-General of Intelligence Bureau of Pakistan (2004 – 2008), Brigadier Ijaz Shah (Retd.), had kept Osama bin Laden in an Intelligence Bureau safe house in Abbottabad. In the same address, he revealed that the ISI had helped the CIA to track him down and kill on May 1. The revelation remained unreported for some time because some intelligence officers had asked journalists to refrain from publishing General Butt’s remarks. [1] No mention of the charges appeared until right-wing columnist Altaf Hassan Qureshi referred to them in an Urdu-language article that appeared on December 8.
A snapshot of Ijaz Shah is here.
