British investigative journalists Cathy Scott-Clark and
Adrian Levy have established themselves as specialists in fast-paced,
densely-researched, narrative non-fiction books about the shadowy security of
South Asia. Nuclear Deception was an account of the AQ Khan nuclear
proliferation network. The Meadow told the tale of Western backpackers taken
hostage in Kashmir in 1995. The Siege detailed the horrors of the 26/11 attacks
in Mumbai.
The latest addition to their oeuvre, The Exile, recounts
Osama bin Laden’s years in hiding after the 9/11 attacks. The narrative flits
effortlessly from Iranian detention facilities, Afghan battlefields, and CIA
black sites in Romania and Thailand, to Pakistan Army meetings in Rawalpindi,
safe houses in Karachi, and terrorist conclaves in the tribal areas.
Essentially, it tells three interwoven stories.
The first concerns the trials and tribulations of Bin
Laden’s immediate family, based on the authors’ interviews with members in
Pakistan, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. It provides a vivid account of petty
jealousies, marital prospects, and health problems (including mental illness),
as Bin Laden, his many wives and children fled Afghanistan and lived in hiding
in Pakistan and under protection of the Quds Force in Iran.
The second story involves the hunt for Al Qaeda from the
perspective of the hunted, who dispersed to South Waziristan and Bajaur,
Karachi and Iran, Haripur and Abbottabad. Scott-Clark and Levy hold a mirror to
the US government’s official history, reinforced in film and other accounts.
Key turning points included the capture of courier Hassan Ghul in early 2004,
the CIA’s refocus on bin Laden in 2009, and the identification of bin Laden’s
Abbottabad compound in August 2010. There were setbacks, including attempts to
turn Ghul, the notorious Aafia Siddiqui, and Jordanian doctor Humam al-Balawi
into double- agents. The Exile also exposes deep flaws in US intelligence, such
as the inflated importance accorded to the captured Abu Zubaydah.
The third tale concerns high politics, a domain where
Scott-Clark and Levy are least comfortable. This includes the machinations of
the Pakistani and Iranian governments, both of which wrestled internally with
how to deal with Al Qaeda and its affiliates on the one hand, and the US on the
other. Some of it strains credulity. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf’s
decision to assist the US against Al Qaeda is portrayed as one of swift
brilliance on September 11th, 2001. Unsurprisingly, the source is Musharraf
himself. But while giving some credence to the Pakistani narrative of ‘rogue’
ISI elements and uncontrollable jihadi groups (General Hamid Gul crops up, as
usual, as pantomime villain), the book is far more damning on other counts.
It details the assistance provided to fleeing Al Qaeda
men by ISI-affiliates Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed, Musharraf’s
stubborn reluctance to crack down on Al Qaeda in South Waziristan in 2004, and
the fallout of the disastrous 2006 Waziristan Accord. The ISI’s S-Wing,
Scott-Clark and Levy write, ‘dealt directly with armed Islamist outfits without
referral back to headquarters to ensure plausible deniability for the ISI
chief’. Significantly, The Exile draws a straight line between Bin Laden’s
escape from Afghanistan and the attack on Indian Parliament in December 2001,
with Pakistani troops diverted to the Indian border with uncharacteristic
alacrity. ‘It was difficult not to see this as a deliberate ruse to allow Osama
bin Laden to escape from Tora Bora into Pakistan,’ the authors conclude. The
dots are less well connected when it comes to the Abbottabad compound. When
construction began in 2004, ‘The Abbottabad Cantonment Board approved the plans
without verifying the owner, although this was a legal requirement.’ The
records of Bin Laden’s architect suggest that Lashkar-e-Taiba had helped
purchase the plot.
All told, The Exile makes for a brisk, informative read.
But it still remains an early draft of history. Further drafts, drawing from
sources not yet available, will eventually provide a more complete picture of
what was once the world’s biggest unsolved mystery.