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May 13, 2015

U.S., Pakistani Sources Back Hersh Claim on bin Laden Informant 
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More sources are confirming a key claim in an explosive story
challenging the Obama administration's account of the killing of Osama
bin Laden. Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reported this weekend
a former Pakistani intelligence officer disclosed bin Laden's location
to the CIA. Hersh said U.S. claims it found bin Laden by tracking his
personal courier were false. NBC News confirmed Hersh's claim of the
informant through three different intelligence sources. Now the
Pakistani newspaper The News reports Pakistani officials are also
acknowledging the story and have identified the officer as Usman Khalid.
Hersh's story says the officer received a $25 million bounty and is now
living under U.S. protection near Washington. Carlotta Gall, a New York
Times reporter who spent years in Afghanistan and Pakistan, is also now
claiming she heard from a high-level Pakistani source that Pakistan was
hiding bin Laden and later that an officer had told the CIA. Gall says
she didn't publish the story because she couldn't corroborate it in the
United States. Meanwhile, national security blogger R.J. Hillhouse is
pointing out she reported some of Hersh's key claims four years ago. In
August 2011, Hillhouse wrote on her blog that the informant who led the
CIA to bin Laden was a walk-in seeking financial compensation and that
Pakistani officials were keeping bin Laden under house arrest with Saudi
financial support.

 

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