A US-Pakistan-Afghanistan-Taliban Package

Vol. 11, Issue 491, May 6, 2011 click here for print version A US-Pakistan- Afghanistan-Taliban Package The Sale. The Price. The Deal Under ISI Protection and Care Osama bin Laden's Five or More Villa Hideouts in Pakistan Why May 2, 2011 and not 2007? Osama bin Laden's Death as Obama's Lever for Muslim Brotherhood Rule The Revolt in Syria Up to 80 percent of Syrian Troops Refuse to Open Fire HOT POINTS A Digest of DEBKAfile Round-the-Clock Exclusives in the Week Ending May 5, 2011 A US-Pakistan-Afghanistan-Taliban Package The Sale. The Price. The Deal It is an open secret among the counterterrorism agencies engaged in the war on al Qaeda that the United States and Pakistani military and intelligence were in some sort of rapport before and during the US special raid of May 2 that ended the life of Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden in Abbottabad, in the North West Frontier of Pakistan, DEBKA-Net-Weekly reports. The battle of contradictory accounts Washington and Islamabad were conducting this week on what really happened in the raided villa will not be allowed to get out of hand because, "Tomorrow is another day for the war on terrorism and a united effort for gains," one Western intelligence officer commented. "At the same time," said the source, "While not slamming the door, neither are the Americans or the Pakistanis letting each other completely off the hook. Both want to make sure that their opposite number doesn't go it alone." The verbal sparring between Washington and Islamabad is a feature of the following scenario: 1. The two governments are contradicting each other on the degree of cooperation between them: US officials deny Pakistan knowledge of or cooperation in the operation whereas Pakistani officials insist it was a joint venture and refuse to back down. Lieut. Gen. Asad Durrani, former head of Pakistan's Inter-Services-Intelligence agency, ISI, said Thursday, May 5, that it was "inconceivable" for his government to have been ignorant of the US commando raid on the bin Laden's compound, but are officially denying it to stave off domestic backlash. Mystery of the 25-minute camera blackout 2. The US-Pakistani cooperation argument threads through the questions surrounding the target's positive identification. White House Spokesman Jay Carney said Wednesday that the US Navy Seals who raided the house could not have been mistaken about Bin Laden's identity. He did not explain why. Western intelligence officers with experience in such operations say there is no such thing as zero error - unless someone already present on the scene identifies the target from his own firsthand knowledge or a laser indicator points straight at him. Durrani, though officially retired, would not have spoken without clearance from his former masters. He went on to say that Pakistani intelligence was disavowing any role in the US operation as a "political" maneuver necessary to rebut charges of working too closely with the Americans. "It is likely that they did know [about the raid]," he said. "It is not conceivable that it was done without the involvement of Pakistani security forces at some stage. They were involved and they were told they were in position. The army chief was in his office, the cordons had been thrown around that particular place. The Pakistani helicopters were also in the air so that indicates that it was involved." 3. One of the mysteries surrounding the episode concerned the 25-minute blackout during https://www.debka.com/weekly/491/ 1/14

which live feed from cameras mounted on the helmets of the US commandos was cut off. On Wednesday, CIA Chief Leon Panetta said in an interview with PBS: "I can tell you that there was a time period of almost 20 or 25 minutes where we really didn't know just exactly what was going on. And there were some very tense moments as we were waiting for information." Photos leaked of three unarmed men in pools of blood Shortly after he made these comments, the Reuters agency in Islamabad announced that it had acquired photographs taken about an hour after the US assault on bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad showing three dead men lying in pools of blood with no weapons in sight. The photos were taken by a Pakistani security official who entered the compound after the early morning raid on Monday. Those leaked photos sent a double-barreled signal from Islamabad to Washington: Stop saying there are no pictures of what happened inside the building. There are and we have them. That does not mean we will publish them all at this time. DEBKA-Net-Weekly's sources note that the existence of such pictures would confirm the remarks affirming Pakistani involvement in the bin Laden hit one way or another by Pakistani Foreign minister Salman Bashar on Wednesday and by Lieut. Gen. Durrani, who Thursday detailed Pakistani input and emphasized that "they were in position." By leaking the photographic evidence of the bodies of three unarmed men, Islamabad sought to stop the unending flow of conflicting versions put out by the Obama administration about what went on inside the villa and set the record straight about Pakistan's contribution to its success. Before that, a statement from Islamabad had forced the White House spokesman to backtrack on an earlier statement that Bin Laden had died in a firefight and admit he was unarmed when killed. The helicopter crash was the only digression from the agreed plan Wednesday, US sources produced a new version which claimed that although Bin Laden was indeed unarmed, his family members, including his son, were armed and fired at the US forces. The Pakistani comeback came in the form of the photographs leaked to Reuters which showed unarmed, unidentified Pakistanis lying dead in the death room of the villa. The absence of weapons on those photos not only rebutted oftamended accounts from Washington but proved that the al Qaeda leader and the people around him felt safe enough under the protection of Pakistani intelligence and military to dispense with weapons. The verbiage flying back and forth between Washington and Islamabad has revealed the contours of the assistance Pakistan rendered to the mission to kill Bin Laden. First of all, the operation was carried out on the basis of precise information relayed to Washington about the activities in the villa Bin Laden's movements, routines and possibly the times he went to bed. The airspace over Abbottabad was kept clear of traffic to allow the American helicopters to touch down, drop the troops and take off without interference. The only digression from the joint plan known to DEBKA-Net-Weekly's intelligence sources was the crash of one of the four American helicopters taking part in the operation. Washington reported the copter made a hard landing because of a mechanical fault and no American soldiers were injured. Other sources claim that it was fired on in an attack that took the Americans and Pakistanis by surprise and that some injuries must have been unavoidable. What business did three top Pakistani officials contract in Kabul? https://www.debka.com/weekly/491/ 2/14

After establishing the fact of US-Pakistani collaboration in terminating Osama bin Laden, the whys and wherefores remain to be addressed. At this early date, DEBKA-Net-Weekly's sources cannot precisely name which members of the Pakistani government, military or intelligence elites worked with Washington on the plan, or whether only certain factions were involved. Most Western intelligence agencies with a presence in Pakistan incline to view that some members of all three communities may have had a hand in the US operation which was essentially the outcome of a quid pro quo deal with the Obama administration and the CIA, whose broad terms are disclosed here: We turn Osama bin Laden over, you terminate him and together we can embark on the road toward ending the Afghanistan war. In the next part of the scenario, Pakistani military intelligence undertakes to bring the Taliban to the table for negotiating the war's conclusion. In return, the US and Afghanistan will guarantee to support Pakistan's interests in Kabul. This would entail Washington and Kabul abandoning their evenhanded policy in the contest between Pakistan and India for influence in the war-torn country and throw their weight behind Islamabad. Monday, April 25, a week before the Bin Laden raid, the head of Pakistan's Army Staff, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, took part in the "passing out parade" at the prestigious Kakul military academy in Abbottabad, Pakistan's West Point. The reviewing stand on which he stood was 400 meters from the bin Laden villa. Addressing the ceremony, Kayani said the "back of terrorism" in Pakistan had been broken, thanks to the sacrifices of Pakistan's soldiers. A formula emerging for ending the Afghan War The impression gained in many Western intelligence circles was that Gen. Kayani knew that the al Qaeda leader's end was near and chose his words to correspond with the line Islamabad has taken since the event. He is also believed to have used his visit to Abbottabad for a last inspection to make sure that the US raid went smoothly. Those circles point tellingly to the visit Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, Gen. Kayani and ISI Director-General Ahmed Shuja Pasha paid to Kabul, Saturday, April 16, three weeks before the Abbottabad operation. This top-level Pakistani party is believed to have tied up the last ends of the deal between the three partners, the US, Pakistan and the Afghan government, the trigger for which was to be the death of the al Qaeda leader. From the American perspective, his death achieved the objective for which the US went to war in Afghanistan in 2001straight after al Qaeda's 9/11 attacks on America: Osama bin Laden, who masterminded those attacks after first trying and failing to destroy New York's Twin Towers in 1993, the evil genius of global jihadist terror, was dead at the hands of American troops. Even the high command which had supported him in Afghanistan and Pakistan had more or less broken up. And so, President Obama is free to set a tight timeline for bringing American troops home. The deal has placed Afghan President Hamid Karzai within reach of his goals of getting US and NATO forces out of his country and forming a power-sharing government with the Taliban. The next move in the game is up to Islamabad: The Taliban's hard core leaders, headed by Mullah Omar, have yet to be brought to the negotiating table, a maneuver that will require time and delicate handling. Much will depend on whether Taliban decides to stage a major attack to avenge the death of the al Qaeda leader or leaves it to another ally or branch of bin Laden's organization. If Taliban opts for revenge against the Americans who killed its close ally and partner instead of diplomacy, the White House's plan will be thrown off course and the Afghan War will continue with greater intensity than ever. Back to Top https://www.debka.com/weekly/491/ 3/14

Under ISI Protection and Care Osama bin Laden's Five or More Villa Hideouts in Pakistan Up until May 2, 2011, Pakistan sheltered Osama bin Laden in protected and comfortable accommodation. Indeed, between 2004 and 2005, at least five fortified villa complexes like the one raided by US Special Forces in Abbottabad May 2 were provided for the al Qaeda leader's use as hideouts in different parts of Pakistan. They were all located in upscale areas or near military facilities, one of them actually inside an army residential neighborhood near Karachi populated by officers of the rank of lieutenant colonel and higher. And, according to DEBKA-Net-Weekly's intelligence sources, when unoccupied by bin Laden, the walled homes often served Pakistani intelligence as safe houses or even holiday villas for high officers. When Foreign Secretary Salman Bashar disclosed Wednesday, May 4 that information about the Abbottabad villa had been relayed to Washington two years ago, he added that there were "millions of other suspect locations" in other parts of Pakistan. Some intelligence officials in the West wondered out loud this week how, in a country where the average man is no more than 1.60 meters in height, a two-meter tall Arab managed to escape notice when he stepped out on the roof of his house or a balcony for a breath of fresh air. (The balconies, incidentally, were angled so as to obstruct snipers' aim from outside the compound.) On those grounds alone, Pakistani intelligence, the ISI, or even his army neighbors would have known who was living there some of the time. Another point that sticks out about those residences, assuming that Abbottabad was the template for his other secret bolt holes in Pakistan, is that they had no open or covered parking space. The most wanted terrorist in the world hunted by every Western secret service did not keep a getaway car ready to go. Neither were any helicopters set aside for his use at nearby Pakistan army facilities, some located less than half a kilometer from one of his makeshift residences. That is not the only odd fact about Osama bin Laden's security arrangements. Osama bin Laden would have been easier prey in 2007 Only two electrically-operated gates gave access to the compound behind the 3-5-meter high walls. Effective for keeping unwanted visitors out, a small number of armed men could have barred the two gates in a trice and caged him inside. No underground escape hatch had been tunneled under the house. If attacked, therefore, the master terrorist would have found the jaws of his sanctuary snapping shut making it a trap. Neither did the villa have a bunker or fortified room for protection against an exploding missile or bomb, such as is now standard in every government compound in the US, Pakistan and Arab countries. The Abbottabad house, astonishingly, too, was not fitted with alarms, whether sophisticated electronic sensors or even an ordinary burglar alarm. DEBKA-Net-Weekly's intelligence and counterterrorism sources disclose that when the occupants of those walled compounds, including bin Laden, decided to relocate, a long convoy of luxury limousines and buses turned up to collect them. The convoy would be kept waiting outside one of the gates for its passengers. But there were no guards covering the second gate against trespassers. The vehicles moved off without police or military escort. According to our sources, these convoys commuted between bin Laden's different Pakistan addresses five to seven times a year between 2007 and early 2010. The schedule was then reduced to two or three trips. After September 2010, Bin Laden with family and entourage stayed put in Abbottabad. The convoys moving up and down open roads every few months during 2007 would have presented an easier target operationally and intelligence-wise than a raid on a three-storey building. Yet the most notorious terrorist mastermind of the age was not attacked for four years, undoubtedly because the top US administration policy-makers had decided to hold back until this month. https://www.debka.com/weekly/491/ 4/14

Inconsistencies and retractions This means that President George W. Bush in his last two years in office and President Barack Obama, in the first two, decided not to authorize the Al Qaeda leader's slaying or capture. (A separate article in this issue Obama lever for the Muslim Brotherhood's Push for Power - analyzes the considerations holding them back.) Two days after breaking the news of his death, the White House in Washington began to feel the backlash. Wednesday, May 4, the Pakistani government, fed up with taking the heat of accusations and innuendo in the US and West alleging that Osama bin Laden had been living under its Inter-Services-Intelligence agency's protection, hit back: Foreign Secretary Bashar disclosed that as far back as 2009, during the first year of Obama's office as president, the ISI had indicated to the CIA that the Abbottabad complex was a possible hideout for terrorists. Transfers of information had been intensified from November 2010. The 2009 date offered by the Pakistani minister did not square with the one offered in Obama's first announcement early Monday, May 2, when he said the first lead to Bin Laden's whereabouts in Abbottabad reached him in August 2010. Washington had made it easy for Islamabad to exploit the errors and gaps in the often conflicting American accounts of the affair. In one embarrassing climb-down, Obama's press secretary, Jay Carney, admitted that the previous version of events mostly from the chief US counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan had been put out "with great haste." Contradicting earlier claims that the Al Qaeda leader had died while firing an automatic weapon at the US commandos or "in a firefight", the spokesman admitted "he was unarmed." Likewise, the dramatic account of Bin Laden using his wife as a "human shield" and forcing her to sacrifice her life proved false. The woman was still alive and had been taken into Pakistani custody with several of his offspring. Pakistanis walk a tight rope More retracting, amending and revising lie ahead of the White House in the coming days, DEBKA-Net-Weekly's military sources report as more information spills out from outside sources - and not only from Pakistan. Allied intelligence services are briefing their governments on the Abbottabad raid from their own informants. More than one has termed the information issuing from Washington "most problematic." The only witnesses to the event inside the Ben Laden villa aside from the 24 US Navy SEALs who carried out the operation are in Pakistani custody. Some were hospitalized with gunshot wounds. They are all under heavy ISI guard. The Pakistani government will have no qualms about producing them and their testimonies in public to get the Americans off their backs. One high-ranking Western intelligence source commented: "It's clear that the Pakistanis are walking a real tightrope here." On the one hand, they don't want it to be caught scheming with the Americans to liquidate Bin Laden for fear of vendettas launched against them by Al Qaeda and the Taliban. On the other hand, they feel that close military and intelligence cooperation with the United States is becoming dangerous to their national-security interests on the Indian subcontinent. DEBKA-Net-Weekly's military sources single out four anomalies in Washington's presentation of the operation which terminated the life of the al Qaeda leader: Osama bin Laden put his security in Pakistani hands https://www.debka.com/weekly/491/ 5/14

1. President Obama and others have lauded the raid as an extraordinarily brilliant, brave and high-precision feat, when in fact most military experts rate it a routine military operation like "the hundreds of raids carried out almost nightly by American and other Western forces in dozens of locations in Afghanistan and Iraq" or by other armies engaged in counter-terror combat like the Israeli Defense Forces on the West Bank. There was nothing complicated about the targeted building to raise exceptional difficulty, they said. The planners and officers had all the necessary military and intelligence information they needed to go forward with the operation and safely predict its successful outcome, namely the al Qaeda leader's death. Therefore a small team was enough to do the job without the need for air cover or a back-up force for unexpected trouble. 2. Since that outcome was foreseen by both by the Americans and Pakistanis, the questions remaining to be answered are: Why did Washington pick May 2011 for the operation and why did the Pakistanis play along? (A separate item in this issue discloses the secret CIA-ISI deal) 3. From the way he was killed, it was obvious that the White House had decided that an American soldier would put a put a bullet in his head rather than use unpiloted drones to fire missiles into his bedroom, whose exact location was known in advance. Why then is Washington prevaricating on this point? 4. The only weapons fired in the Abbottabad villa belonged to the US commandos. It would therefore seem that Bin Laden either had no armed bodyguards on the premises or none were around to stop the raiders climbing the stairs to his bedroom. Their absence would suggest that the al Qaeda leader relied on Pakistani security agencies to protect him and had placed his security in their hands. Because he had a deal with the ISI, it made sense for his havens to be located close to Pakistani military facilities for protection. It also explained why the vehicles carrying him between secret residences required no armed escort and why he didn't bother to outfit them with alarm systems. Back to Top Why May 2, 2011 and not 2007? Osama bin Laden's Death as Obama's Lever for Muslim Brotherhood Rule White House procrastination in ordering the death of Osama bin Laden spans three US presidencies. In the four years from 1996 until 2000 (one year before the 9/11 attacks on American), the CIA director of the day George Tenet and the heads of the agency's Counterterrorist Center-CTC, produced no less than ten plans for eliminating him. President Bill Clinton rejected them all. He was completely caught up at the time in a major effort to bring about a final Israeli- Palestinian peace accord. Even in the face of intelligence warnings that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was into his last preparations for war on Israel, Clinton and his advisers decided to put the al Qaeda operation on hold lest his death inflame Muslims worldwide and put a spoke in the peace process which topped his agenda. The US president calculated that once a peace accord was in the bag and the looming war averted, America's standing in Muslim eyes would be solid enough to withstand the earth tremors raised by taking out bin Laden. But his timing was out. The Palestinian (intifada) war was launched in September 2000 and raged until Arafat's defeat and death in late 2004 four years later. In that time, Bin Laden and his followers imbibed much innovative terrorist tradecraft from the Palestinians which they put to use in the coming decade, such as how to rig car bombs, assemble explosive vests for suicide bombers and hijack airliners, which they later wielded as weapons of mass destruction. Bush targeted Zarqawi in Iraq, Clinton prioritized Palestinian-Israel peace https://www.debka.com/weekly/491/ 6/14

His successor George W. Bush declared war on Al Qaeda after the 9/11 terrorist atrocity claimed nearly 3,000 American lives. His handling of bin Laden had three stages. In the first, trom 2001 until 2004, no reliable intelligence was available on the Al Qaeda leader's whereabouts. In 2004, a year after America's invasion of Iraq, Bush shifted the onus of his counter-al Qaeda strategy to Iraq and focused on targeting Abu Musab al-zarqawi, the organization's head of its operation in that country. The US president reasoned that the Jordanian Zarqawi was the most brilliant operations commander al Qaeda had ever fielded. Unless he was destroyed, he would be certain to succeed Bin Laden, who appeared to be weakening. The al Qaeda leader was thought to be grooming the Jordanian to succeed him over the head of his Egyptian lieutenant Ayman al-zawahri. In June 2006, American forces managed to kill Zarqawi, so ending an exceptionally savage two-year career. The previous year, the Americans received their first tip about the villa compound where Bin Laden was living in Pakistan. Still, for the next two years, President Bush decided to press on and finish laying the foundations for an American victory over al Qaeda in Iraq, bringing it to fruition in 2007 by means of the famous US troop surge. That victory, the Bush White House was convinced, would seriously diminish al Qaeda's top man and reduce him in the coming years to spending all his time moving from one hideout to another on the run from pursuit. Technically speaking, Bush got it right. But in practical and historical terms, he missed a great opportunity to finish the arch-terrorist for good and make good on his premature "Mission accomplished!" boast. Like his father, President George Bush Sr., who in 1991, failed to follow through on the Gulf War by taking Baghdad and removing Saddam Hussein, the son George left a toxic loose end hanging and ready to snap back. Osama bin Laden's death as a lever for US-Muslim reconciliation When Barack Obama followed the second Bush into the White House in January 2009, his mind was fixed on three overriding ambitions: He determined to show Americans and the world that war was not the only way to solve international conflicts and promote American interests; multilateral diplomacy must take the place of armed conflict. Another was to achieve a historic US- Muslim reconciliation alongside the demise of radical Islamic terror, first and foremost al Qaeda's war on America. Unlike Clinton and Bush, Obama decided that eliminating Osama bin Laden would serve his goals, provided he could make it the lever for his outreach to the Muslim world. But like Clinton, he made a permanent Israel-Palestinian a cornerstone of his policy. Two months ago, on March 6, the Washington Post offered a pointer to President Obama's overall vision: "The roots of the (US) policy shift (in the Middle East) go back to Obama's first days in office and his feeling that America's relationship with the Arab world was broken," the WP reported. "Though Obama seemed to be accommodating the region's authoritarian leaders, in August 2010, he issued Presidential Study Directive 11, asking agencies to prepare for change. This document cited 'evidence of growing citizen discontent with the region's regimes' and warned that 'the region is entering a critical period of transition.' The president asked his advisers to 'manage these risks by demonstrating to the people of the Middle East and North Africa the gradual but real prospect of greater political openness and improved governance.'" This was an astonishing public admission, which was first cited by DEBKA-Net-Weekly in Issue 485 of March 18 (Obama's New Mid East Strategy Stalls). It implied that Washington was steering the Arab revolt, or 'Arab spring', through Obama's Presidential Study Directive 11. Presidential Study Directive 11 gets going https://www.debka.com/weekly/491/ 7/14

Our Washington sources note that when, early Monday morning, May 2,Obama announced Bin Laden's death, he spoke of the first lead to his whereabouts (in the Abbottabad villa) reaching him last August: "Then, last August, after years of painstaking work by our intelligence community, I was briefed on a possible lead to Bin Laden," he said - although Wednesday, May 4, the Pakistanis said Washington was informed of this intelligence with low intensity as early as the beginning of 2009 and with greater intensity starting from September 2010. What is important to note here is that August was month that Directive No. 11 was issued and therefore a watershed date for President Obama. Bin Laden's death like the Arab Spring were not ends in themselves, but steps towards the objective on which the US president has set his sights. Our Middle East sources report that this objective, word of which has begun circulating around intelligence circles in the region, has been brought to the notice of the Saudi royal family, the military junta in Cairo, the presidential palace in Damascus and the Israeli Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem: President Obama's ultimate goal is to confer on the Muslim Brotherhood the legitimacy to assume power. After Osama bin Laden's elimination, Obama is raring to go forward to fulfill the vision outlined in his Study Directive 11 and raise the Brotherhood to power-sharing status as a force for Islamic moderation able to counteract Al Qaeda-type radicalism. Middle East sources find evidence of the US president's impatience in the Palestinian unity pact Mahmoud Abbas for Fatah and Khaled Meshaal for Hamas signed in Cairo on May 4 for ending their four-year Palestinian feud. This pact consummated a key component of the Obama master plan. Separating the extremists from the moderates Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu condemned the pact as "a mortal blow to peace and a victory for terror." In private conversation in Cairo, our sources quote Abbas asking his Egyptian hosts rhetorically: Why are the Israelis complaining to me they should complain to Obama. Hamas is an offshoot of the Egyptian and Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood branches. "I am only acting out his guidelines by helping the Brotherhood's integration in Middle East governance." In Syria, President Bashar Assad is not just fighting a popular uprising against his repressive regime; he is desperate to crush the Muslim Brotherhood which would rise in the wake of the opposition's victory and wreak its revenge for the slaughter his father President Hafez Assad inflicted on its members in Hama 39 years ago. (See the separate item in this issue on the conflict in Syria.) While Presidents Bush and Clinton declined to incorporate the al Qaeda leader's demise in their active policies, for Obama it was of pivotal importance. He was also keen to show American soldiers performing the deed. Obama was sending out a signal that Muslim pragmatists and extremists would be treated very differently by his administration: While the former would be encouraged, any radical circles in the Muslim Brotherhood trying to move into the positions of power his policy had carved out for their movement would receive short shrift witness, Osama bin Laden's fate. More than one Middle East ruler is disquieted by what is seen by some as a dangerous bee in the American president's bonnet, fearing he may not realize that by putting his hand in the Muslim world, he is playing with fire. Back to Top The Revolt in Syria Up to 80 percent of Syrian Troops Refuse to Open Fire With every passing day, Syrian President Bashar Assad loses ground. Tuesday, May 3, he announced that the army had ended its operations in the southern province of Horon and its anti-regime https://www.debka.com/weekly/491/ 8/14

protest center Daraa and would withdraw "very soon." Two days later, on Thursday, Syrian generals stated that the withdrawal has begun. DEBKA-Net-Weekly's military sources report that they lied; the forces responsible for shooting protesters at point blank range were still in place in Daraa. The Syrian ruler shows no sign that he is conscious of the hate his brutal crackdown has generated across his country. When he spoke to visitors to Damascus from the northeastern provinces Tuesday, he remarked coolly that what was happening in Syria could take place in any country. But the numbers of dead at the hands of his security forces have reached the point where his acts of repression will forever stain the annals of Syrian history: The uprising in Egypt, which has a population of 90 million - more than triple Syria's 26 million inhabitants - left 860 dead. In the ten days since Assad sent the army into disaffected cities, 780 Syrian civilians have been killed and the number rises daily. His remarks indicate either that he is a cold fish or that his close aides are too scared to tell him that with every passing day he loses the support of more and more army units. This week, no more than 20 percent of the soldiers deployed in the cities obeyed orders to shoot protesters; eighty percent were not even prepared to mount charges against the demonstrators as they did in the first week of the uprising. Military units refuse to fire. Tanks won't advance on demonstrators Our military sources recall the conduct of the Egyptian army in January during the uprising against Hosni Mubarak. The brigade commanders there didn't even bother to relay orders to the officers to have their men open fire and break up the demonstrations because those orders would have been flouted and resulted in a breakdown in discipline and order. (Incidentally, this is still the case in most Egyptian units.) In Syria, only 34,000 troops are still obedient. They are members of the 4th Division under the command of Assad's younger brother, Gen. Maher Assad, parts of the 14th Division and units of the Republican Guard. However, since the beginning of the week, the remaining 176,000 soldiers, the bulk of the Syrian army, are defying orders to fire live ammunition at protesters, whether to shoot them in the legs or even in the air to break up rallies. The defiant units take up positions against the demonstrators when ordered to do so but then remain passive. Tank units, heavy armored carriers and armored infantry line up in columns. But when ordered to advance on demonstrators, they remain stationary. Our military sources exclusively name the insubordinate units: The 5th Syrian Division stationed in the Horan province and its capital Daraa near the border with Jordan where the uprising against the Assad regime started and which became its epicenter. Our sources reveal that the commander of this division, General Rifai Mohammed, has been missing for several days and no one knows where he is. Assad's big test Friday in Aleppo The demonstrators, who have learned to identify the various armored units by their insignia and emblems, know that the vehicles of this division will not attack them. So when they appear, they clamber atop the vehicles, wave flags and placards and shout '"The people and the army are one!'" When Assad said the army has completed its mission in Daraa, he must have been covering up for his loss of control. The 7th Syrian Division stationed in Homs is in the same situation: Its members are refusing to confront the demonstrators. On Wednesday, May 4, Assad deployed tanks and soldiers he believed would obey him around Al-Rastan, a town near Homs. The 11th Syrian Division stationed near Aleppo, the second biggest city after Damascus with a population of nearly 3 million, is showing signs of insubordination among its officers and men. Friday is the main day of protest in Syria. This week it will be the big test for https://www.debka.com/weekly/491/ 9/14

Aleppo and this division. If large-scale rallies take place there for the first time and if the 11th division refuses to break them up, a very large new nail will have been hammered into Bashar Assad's coffin. The Syrian ruler tried to restore his grip on Damascus, the capital, with mass arrests in its suburbs Thursday, May 5, after he was forced in mid-week to withdraw army units from the capital's outlying districts and towns for refusing to fight the demonstrators. This means that control of the greater Damascus area and its population of about two million has passed to his opponents. In readiness for the regular outbreaks after Friday prayers, he has positioned 70 armored carriers and 30 tanks of the still-loyal Republican Guard on the main roads around Damascus. They stand ready to roll back into those urban areas and recapture them from the rebels. Assad is deaf to advice from close advisers to halt crackdown In the broad reaches of eastern Syria between Abu Kamal on the junction of the Syrian, Jordanian and Iraqi borders up to Al-Azur in the north, not a single Syrian soldier is to be seen. Assad just doesn't have enough loyal forces to send there. DEBKA-Net-Weekly's intelligence sources report signs that support for the regime is also crumbling among the ruling Syrian Ba'ath party elite. Diplomats who are party members, high-ranking bureaucrats and senior party activists, once glad to present the ruler's case to the Western and Arabic media, are suddenly too shy to speak on camera and don't return media phone calls. Some don't conceal their disgust with the Assad regime's harsh means of suppression. The Syrian Ambassador to Jordan, Bahjat Sulaiman is one of the most prominent Assad loyalists turned critic. Sulaiman is not just a run-of-the mill diplomat. For many years he headed Syria's powerful intelligence services and was one of Bashar Assad's father President Hafez Assad's closest associates. Jordan's King Abdullah II, who is very concerned that the Horan unrest will spill over into the Hashemite Kingdom, this week asked some prominent Jordanians to approach the Syrian ambassador and ask him to go to Damascus and tell Assad he must abandon his crackdown and stop the bloodbath engulfing Syria. But the ambassador replied there was no point. Assad and the incumbent intelligence director, Gen. Ali Mamluk, are fixated on their mistaken course, Sulaiman explained, and refuse to heed any advice to the contrary. Back to Top HOT POINTS A Digest of DEBKAfile Round-the-Clock Exclusives in the Week Ending May 5, 2011 April 29-30, 2001 Briefs Three suspected Al Qaeda members arrested in Duesseldorf and Bochum, Germany. Authorities: "A concrete and imminent danger" of attack averted. Egypt steps up security around Jewish synagogue, Coptic church in Alexandria after threats received. Egyptian justice minister: Deposed president Hosni Mubarak will be put to death if convicted of order demonstrators shot. Shelling and heavy gunfire hit Syrian town of Daraa as scores of funeral processions got underway. Taliban launches spring offensive, Afghans advised to avoid crowd centers, roadblocks, military and NATO positions. Israel's jobless figure drops to 6 percent. Qaddafi escapes NATO air strike which kills his son 30 April. The Libyan war took a new and dangerous turn with the killing of Saif al-arab, 29, https://www.debka.com/weekly/491/ 10/14

the youngest of Muammar Qaddafi's six sons, and three of his grandsons by a NATO air strike in Tripoli Saturday night April 30. Muammar and his wife were present in the targeted villa but unhurt. NATO has not confirmed this report. DEBKAfile: The Libyan ruler's resolve to fight the Western alliance will be strengthened and he is expected to seek out NATO targets inside and outside Libya. A Libyan government spokesman said the attack violated international law and had no moral, legal or political foundation. What is happening now is the law of the jungle and had nothing to do with the protection of civilians as required by UN Resolution 1973. The house was attacked shortly after Muammar Qaddafi went on television to offer to negotiate a ceasefire, an offer later rejected by NATO. Western intelligence: Syrian uprising has gone too far to be suppressed 30 April. After shelling, tank assaults and siege left 100 protesters dead in the last 48 hours without quelling the unrest, Western intelligence sources believe it has careered beyond President Bashar Assad's ability to save his regime. It is likely to keep on spreading and evolve into armed rebellion. Those sources estimate the uprising as already encompassing 6-7 million Syrians (out of a population of 26 million) and a third of its area. President Assad has thrown into his crackdown every military asset he can spare without further jeopardizing his regime. At the end of the week, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan was worried enough to send a delegation to Damascus to warn Assad to stop his six-week old bloodbath or his regime would go down. Iran is meanwhile backing extremist elements of the Assad regime, including his brother Mahar Assad, who call for harsher action against the protesters. Iranian Brig. Gen. Qassem Suleimani has set up a secret operational base close to the Syrian border. May 1, 2011 Briefs Libyan ambassador given 24 hours to leave the UK after empty British ambassador's Tripoli residence destroyed. This was in reprisal for the NATO air strike which killed Muammar Qaddafi's son and three grandsons Saturday. London refuses to verify their deaths. Yemen peace accord postponed indefinitely after Ali Saleh refuses to attend signing ceremony in Riyadh. Israel threatens to suspend transfer of funds to Palestinian Authority. Finance Minister Steinetz: Onus on PA to prove not a shekel reaches Hamas or other terrorists. Egyptian finance minister Radwan: Peace treaty does not oblige us to sell Israel gas. Duke and Duchess of Cambridge cancel honeymoon trip to Jordan over Al Qaeda terror concerns. Hizballah prepares to pull its heavy missiles from Syrian safekeeping 1 May. The Lebanese Shiite Hizballah has decided the Assad regime is sinking. DEBKAfile's military sources report the organization is preparing to pull its heavy, longrange weapons out of storage in Syrian military facilities no longer sure they are safe there and transport them to Lebanon. Hizballah may even risk Israel making good on its threat to destroy the Iran-made Fatah-110 surface missiles, its Syrian equivalent, the M-600 and mobile SA-8 (Gecko) anti-air battery - if they cross the border. Tehran paid for their upkeep in Syrian storage. Transferred to Lebanon, this hardware would be game changers in the balance of strength against Israel, capable of reaching every corner of the country and seriously restricting Israeli Air Force operations. May 2, 2011 Briefs AP: Obama officials say DNA testing confirms bin Laden's identity. Clinton: Our message to Taliban: You cannot wait us out or defeat us. You can abandon al Qaeda and participate in a peaceful process. The syndicate of terror did not end with Osama bin Laden's death, she said. Hamas PM Haniyeh condemns US "assassination of a Muslim and holy Arab warrior". Israel's president and prime minister joined congratulations flooding in from world leaders. Annual Memorial Day for Victims and Heroes of Nazi Holocaust marked in Israel with ceremonies. Places of entertainment closed for 24 hours. Thousands honor 6 million murdered Jews with March of Living from Auschwitz to Birkenau Nazi death camps. https://www.debka.com/weekly/491/ 11/14

How does the bin Laden killing tie in with the Arab revolt? 2 May. Far from dispensing with electronic gadgetry and computers as widely reported, photos of the fortress-villa in Abbottabad, Pakistan, occupied by Osama bin Laden prove it was equipped with both and therefore vulnerable to penetration and surveillance. Puzzling questions include: Why did the US and Pakistan who must have known where he was not lay hands on him sooner? Was al Qaeda's spirit and mastermind eliminated before his networks could move in on the Arab uprisings? The linkage was drawn by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: " history would record that bin Laden's death had come at a time when peoples in the Middle East and North Africa were rejecting the extremist narrative and were standing up for freedom and democracy." That of course will depend on how those peoples view the US targeted operation to kill him. This statement by "an American intelligence official" to Reuter was not helpful: "US Special forces set out to kill Osama bin Laden and dump his body in the sea to make it harder for the al Qaeda founder to become a martyr." The head of the Al-Azhar Supreme Sunni Council of Egypt condemned the dumping of bin Laden's body in the sea as violating the tenets of Islam and human norms. Osama bin Laden buried at sea. His last haven a Pakistani garrison town 2 May. Far from being holed up in a remote mountain cave, bin Laden lived in comfort in a three-storey villa with his close family around him in a semi-urban area almost certainly under Pakistani intelligence oversight. It is also emerging that the town of Abbottabad came to the notice of US intelligence four months ago: It was there that Indonesian al-qaida's Umar Patek was arrested in Jan. 2011. He was on the run from a $1 million US bounty on his head, for helping mastermind the 2002 suicide bombings of nightclubs in Bali that killed 202 people. It would therefore seem that Abbottabad in Pakistan's North West Frontier region provided sanctuary not only for bin Laden but also for some of high-profile Al Qaeda operations officers. Obama confirms Osama bin Laden killed in US special operation 2 May. The announcement that al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden had been killed in an American operation in Abbotabad (150 north of Islamabad in Pakistan) was made early Monday, May 2, by US President Barack Obama at the White House. "After a firefight, bin Laden was killed and the US force took possession of his body." Upon hearing the news, jubilant crowds gathered around the White House and other parts of America singing, dancing and shouting USA USA! DEBKAfile's counter-terror experts note that Bin Laden's death while momentous has not terminated the threat of al Qaeda terror, whose main thrust has refocused in recent years on the Middle East and Africa, especially in places like Yemen, Somalia, Algeria and the Sahara. For years, al Qaeda sources claimed that bin Laden had kept a special strike force ready to go into action in the West on the news of his death or capture. This report was never confirmed. Osama bin Laden is dead 2 May. American TV networks interrupted their broadcasts at 05:45 IST Monday, May 2, with the news that US President Barack Obama will soon deliver a statement on reports that Osama bin Laden, head of Al Qaeda, the most wanted terrorist in the world and author of the 9/ll attacks on America, is dead after a ten-year pursuit. The US is in possession of his body. DEBKAfile's counter-terror sources report that if this is confirmed, Bin Laden had not been on the run as generally reported but living in under the protection of Pakistan military intelligence. It is not clear whether US intelligence tracked him down or was tipped off by the Pakistanis. May 3, 2011 Briefs Prominent member of Abbas' Palestinian Fatah lines up with Hamas in condemning US killing of Osama bin Laden. Security services across West on high alert for revenge attacks. Also US international https://www.debka.com/weekly/491/ 12/14

airports, Washington and New York public transport systems. Vigilance advised in Israeli overseas offices. In bin Laden raid, US Navy SEALs took a stash of computer files, disks and electronic equipment. Syrian army continues house-to-house arrests. At least 1,000 detained. Muammar Qaddafi's son buried in Tripoli in his absence. Mourners chanted calls for revenge for deadly NATO bombing which missed the father. Iran claims Israeli warplanes drilling at US Iraq bases for striking targets inside Iran. F-15, F-16, F-18, F-22 and KC-10 fighters said to have held night exercises at al-asad base. Six fortified villas in Gaza like the Abbottabad compound 3 May. Like Iran and its surrogates, the late Osama bin Laden's organization has established networks around Israel's borders in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egyptian Sinai. In the Gaza Strip, al Qaeda operatives harbored by Hamas have built six villas on the model of Bin Laden's compound in Pakistan. This will not stop Mahmoud Abbas signing a Palestinian unity accord that opens the West Bank door not only to Hamas terror but to the al Qaeda cells enjoying sanctuary in Gaza. Israeli TV networks claimed incorrectly that Al Qaeda had never attacked Israel, when only in the past year, Gaza-based Al Qaeda cells carried out many of the armed attacks launched on the Gaza-Israeli border and Jewish civilian locations. This is played down by Washington for the sake of sanitizing Hamas as a fit peace partner for Israel. May 4, 2011 Briefs Obama decides finally not to release Osama bin Laden photos, video-clips or any visuals relating to his death or DNA sampling results. ICC seeks three arrest warrants for crimes against humanity in Libya. Netanyahu: Cairo pact reuniting Fatah with Hamas is a mortal blow to peace and victory for terror. Palestinian Fatah and Hamas factions sign pact in Cairo ending their four-year rift. Egypt blacked out on ceremony and arguments which delayed signing for two hours. PA chairman Abbas said he Palestinians were bound by all agreements. Hamas' Meshaal: We will never give up a millimeter of our land, Jerusalem, refugee rights to return and a Palestinian state cleansed of settlers. US. State Department: Hamas condemnation of bin Laden kill is outrageous. White House fumbles getting its Osama bin Laden story straight 4 May. The White House is fighting a losing battle for credibility: Its first statements on the special forces' raid which killed the al Qaeda leader in Abbottabad, Pakistan on May 2 are proving incorrect: Washington has been forced to admit that bin Laden was not armed when he was killed and his wife was not used as a human shield. This further fuels Arab-Muslim skepticism about the affair, especially with Pakistan actively challenging the US version with the help of survivors in its custody. Wednesday, May 4, the dead terrorist's daughter told Al Arabiya TV most damagingly that her father was captured alive and then shot by US forces. Even before that, amid rising demands for evidence that Osama bin Laden was dead, White House spokesman Jay Carney confessed Tuesday night: "Even I'm getting confused." May 5, 2011 Briefs Pakistan's army says it will review cooperation with US in case of another raid similar to that which killed bin Laden. Islamabad will cut US military personnel in Pakistan to "minimum essential" levels. All flights set to take off from Israel grounded over fears of contaminated fuel. White House announces Obama-Netanyahu meeting May 20. Israeli PM visits Paris Thursday for talks with Sarkozy after meeting PM Cameron in London. Hundreds of Syrian troops raid Damascus suburb for mass arrests. Rome meeting considers Libyan rebels' bid for $1.5 bn in aid. https://www.debka.com/weekly/491/ 13/14

High alert on Israeli-Syrian border for refugees 5 May. Thursday, May 5, Israel augmented the units deployed on its border with Syria and the intersection of the Israel-Syria-Jordan frontiers in the Har Dov area against the spate of tens of thousands of Syrian refugees in flight from President Bashar Assad's bloody crackdown in Damascus and the Daraa region. The UN force on the Golan Heights UNDOF is likewise beefing up the contingents policing Israeli-Syrian ceasefire lines. Some, turned away at Turkish, Jordanian and Lebanese borders, are heading for Israel. Back to Top Copyright 2000-2011 DEBKAfile. All Rights Reserved. https://www.debka.com/weekly/491/ 14/14