Pakistan's ISI Likely Sheltered Osama Bin Laden Near a Military Academy for Years

For nearly a decade, the world's most wanted terrorist lived in plain sight in Pakistan, just 875 meters from the Pakistan Military Academy in Abbottabad. When U.S. Navy SEALs stormed the compound on May 2, 2011, killing Osama bin Laden, it raised an uncomfortable question that Pakistan's government has never fully answered: how did the country's intelligence services not know?

The official Pakistani position was unequivocal. Pakistan's military and government insisted they had no knowledge of bin Laden's presence in their own country. Military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas told journalists that the compound's discovery came as a surprise, suggesting that bin Laden had somehow evaded their vast intelligence apparatus. The narrative was simple and deliberate: Pakistan was blindsided, a victim of deception rather than complicit in harboring the world's most notorious terrorist.

This denial began to crumble years later. In 2015, Asad Durrani, who served as chief of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) during the 1990s, made a startling admission. In an interview published by Al Jazeera, Durrani stated it was "more probable than not" that Pakistani intelligence had protected bin Laden. He didn't claim certainty, but he offered something perhaps more damaging: institutional credibility to the suspicion that had haunted the narrative since 2011.

The physical evidence supporting this claim is difficult to dismiss. The Abbottabad compound was no ordinary house. Its construction included 12-foot walls topped with barbed wire, a lack of phone lines or internet connections, and a design seemingly purpose-built for concealment. These weren't accidental features. The property's isolation and security measures mirrored what one would construct to hide someone of significant importance from detection. Neighbors reported the occupants were unusually secretive, never leaving the premises or allowing visitors.

Perhaps most telling was the compound's location itself. Abbottabad is home to Pakistan's premier military institution. Intelligence officers, military personnel, and security officials would have moved through the area regularly. The idea that a structure featuring such obvious security measures could exist for years without attracting attention from Pakistani intelligence strains credibility. In a country where the ISI maintains extensive surveillance capabilities, the claim of ignorance became increasingly difficult to sustain.