CIA safe house owner in bin Laden raid arrested

Story by CNN
Written by Reza Sayah
Video by CNN American Morning

Islamabad, Pakistan -- Pakistan's intelligence agency has arrested a person who rented a safe house to the CIA before American special forces killed Osama bin Laden, a Pakistani source familiar with the arrests told CNN Wednesday. http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/05/01/bin.laden.obit/index.html

A second official confirmed that Pakistan had detained people suspected of giving information to the CIA before the raid, but said he did not know the exact number of people arrested or when it happened.

The revelations, first reported by The New York Times, are likely to further strain what has become a rocky relationship between the two countries.

CIA Director Leon Panetta discussed the arrests Friday with Pakistan army chief Gen. Ashfaq Kayani and Lt. Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha, Pakistan's head of military intelligence, the official said. A United States official confirmed that the discussion had taken place but would not give details about the arrests.

The first Pakistani official did not say whether the owner of the safe house was suspected of being a CIA informant. He asked not to be named discussing sensitive internal matters.

The second Pakistani official asked to remain anonymous because he is not authorized to speak to the media.

Panetta visited Pakistan last week, just over a month after Navy SEALs entered Pakistan secretly and killed bin Laden, further heightening tensions between Washington and Islamabad.

A Pakistani military spokesman confirmed that there were "a number of people arrested in Abbottabad after the raid on the Osama bin Laden compound," but said he could not say what relationship, if any, they had with the CIA.

Some were seized at "a house in Abbottabad that was used to monitor the bin Laden compound activities," said Syed Azmat Ali, the military spokesman. "They could have been Pakistanis who were informants to the CIA."

Ali said those arrests were made by Pakistan's powerful military intelligence agency, the ISI, "immediately after the raid, so this is not a new piece of information."

He and the intelligence official who asked not to be named were responding to reports in the New York Times that Pakistan had arrested five CIA informants who gave information to the United States before the raid on bin Laden's hideout.

The newspaper attributed the report to "American officials" without naming them.

It said one of those arrested was a Pakistani army major who kept records of license plate numbers on cars that visited the bin Laden hideout. Ali, the Pakistani military spokesman said that was "categorically" not true.

The newspaper also cited a damning assessment of Pakistan's cooperation with American counter-terror efforts by a top CIA official.

Deputy CIA director Michael J. Morell rated Pakistan's help at a three on a scale of one to 10, the Times said, quoting "officials familiar with the exchange."

Asked Wednesday by CNN to rate the Pakistani spy agency's relationship with the CIA from a scale of one to 10, military spokesman Ali said four.

Panetta, who has been nominated to be secretary of defense, told Congress in confirmation hearings last week that, "The relationship with Pakistan is at the same time one of the most critical and yet one of the most complicated and frustrating relationships that we have.

"They maintain relationships with certain terrorist groups," he said, adding: "They continue to not take aggressive action with regard to these safe havens, and... they're concerned about the sovereignty results and criticisms of the United States when in fact my view is that the terrorists in their country are probably the greatest threat to their sovereignty."

When he was in Pakistan last week, Panetta also raised the issue of two raids that appear to have failed because of intelligence leaks in recent weeks, a U.S. official said.

The U.S. had shown the Pakistanis evidence of two bomb-making sites near the Afghan border, the official said, asking not to be named discussing intelligence and diplomatic issues.

The Americans believed the sites were being used to stage attacks against U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

When the Pakistanis raided the sites, both were empty.

"The targets appear to have been tipped off," the U.S. official said.

The relationship between the two countries has been in a downward spiral over disputes about how to pursue counterterrorism efforts.

The United States believes Pakistan is not doing enough to go after al Qaeda and other extremists, while the Pakistanis are upset with what they consider to be unilateral steps taken by the United States within their borders.

The United States is suspected of carrying out regular strikes by unmanned aircraft targeting suspected terrorists in Pakistan -- a suspected strike on Wednesday, killing 10 suspected militants, two Pakistani officials said.

Pakistani officials believe there were more than 100 American drone strikes in their country in 2010, a record, according to CNN national security analyst Peter Bergen. They think most of the casualties were foot soldiers or civilians, not high-value terror targets, he said.

The New America Foundation in Washington, which maintains an independent count of reported drone strikes, says there were 118 in 2010, killing between 600 and 1,000 people.

Public opinion polling shows that nine out of 10 Pakistanis have an unfavorable view of the drone strikes.

Pakistanis were also angered by the case of Raymond Davis, a CIA contractor who was charged with killing two Pakistani men, then released after compensation was paid to their families.

Davis described the two men as attackers and said he shot them in self-defense. Lahore Police Chief Aslam Tareen, however, said the case was "clear-cut murder."

According to Davis, the shooting occurred January 27 after two men attacked him as he drove through a busy Lahore neighborhood, the U.S. Embassy has said.

U.S. officials originally said Davis was a diplomat and tried to claim diplomatic immunity, then later revealed that he was a CIA contractor.

CIA chief Panetta's unannounced visit last week was the latest in a series by U.S. officials -- including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen and Sen. John Kerry -- in efforts to smooth things over after bin Laden was killed in the SEALs raid.