Operation Geronimo – Pak-US deal

To the bewilderment of the Pakistani nation and surprise of the entire world, eye-popping information continues to surface in the aftermath of US operation Geronimo – the Hollywood style raid in Pakistan’s major city of Abbottabad that took out the world’s most wanted leader of al-Qaeda.

Just when Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani attempted in his typically unconvincing and fumbling way to take into confidence the nation whose self-esteem has already hit nadir, the British media exploded yet another bomb. 

The Guardian in its breaking news, quoting serving and retired Pakistani and US officials, revealed that the US and Pakistan struck a secret deal almost a decade ago permitting a US operation against Osama bin Laden on Pakistani soil.

The accord was made between the then president General Pervez Musharraf and his US counterpart George Bush after Bin Laden disappeared into the thin air in the mountains of Tora Bora in late 2001.

The pact allowed the US forces to launch a unilateral assault inside Pakistan in a bid to hunt down Bin Laden, his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and the al-Qaida No3. Both sides also agreed that following such raids, Pakistan would vociferously protest the incursion.

In this context what PM Gilani said in his speech in the National Assembly aimed at addressing the nation’s trepidations, would seem to make a whole lot of sense. He warned that if US conducted any such raids in future, Pakistan reserves the right to retaliate with full force.

The Guardian, quoted a senior Pakistani official, saying that the deal was sealed under Musharraf and renewed by the army during the "transition to democracy" – a six-month period from February 2008 when Musharraf was still president but a civilian government had been elected.

The official, referring to the Abbottabad operation, added: "As far as our American friends are concerned, they have just implemented the agreement."

This latest report has, at least, shed some obscurity shrouding the manner in which Pakistani civilian and military officials reacted following the US raid in Abbottabad that eliminated bin Laden.

One now wonders if the in-camera briefing by the military to the joint parliamentary sitting next Friday holds any significance for the nation that had constantly been kept in the dark on Pakistan’s role in the war on terror not just by Musharraf’s military rule but also by the incumbent civilian government.