What the death of Bin Laden means for Af-Pak policy

The political and strategic implications of Osama Bin Laden’s death are legion. One of the biggest impacts of this operation could well be that it speeds up the US withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Obama has long been keen to start bringing US troops home in large numbers. But a withdrawal from Afghanistan with Bin Laden not dealt with could have been portrayed as humiliating by Obama’s political opponents. Now, that Bin Laden is dead, it is much easier for Obama to scale down the US operation there, arguing that the central base of al Qaeda’s operations have now moved out of the country.

The embarrassment for Pakistan of where Bin Laden was found is growing by the hour. It now turns out it was in Abbottabad that General Kayani, the head of the Pakistani military, declared that the country had ‘cracked’ the problem of terrorism. 

Given that Abbottabad is a city dominated by the Pakistani military, it is the base for three Pakistani regiments and a military academy, it seems almost impossible that a new, million dollar compound with specially high security walls could be built there in 2005 without the authorities knowing.