Christina Lamb

Out of the shadows

Bin Laden’s death has exposed Pakistan’s double game with the West

issue 07 May 2011

Bin Laden’s death has exposed Pakistan’s double game with the West

Even those of us who did not believe that Osama bin Laden was producing his videos from a cave in a remote tribal mountain would never have guessed that he was, in fact, living in a ‘Come and Get Me’ three-storey house surrounded by cabbage fields just down the road from Pakistan’s top military academy.

To many in Washington, here was final proof — if any were needed — that its supposed ally has been playing a double game; that, for the past ten years, Pakistan has been playing the role of US ally (and taking more than $18 billion of American aid) while all the time sheltering the Taleban and al-Qa’eda. ‘The game is up,’ a senior Pentagon official told me the day after bin Laden’s killing, admitting he felt ‘a darned idiot’ for being played for so long.

Last year I went for lunch in Abbottabad, bin Laden’s adopted hometown, which nestles in green hills about 90 minutes’ drive from Islamabad.

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