Nabeel
Naeem Abdul Fattah, former leader of
the Egyptian Islamic Jihad (1988-
1992), claimed that Al Qaida chief Osama Bin Laden was not shot dead by
US Special Forces (SEALs) in ‘Operation Geronimo’, but blew himself up
to avoid capture soon after they launched the raid at his Abbotabad
compound in Pakistan on May 2, 2011.
“Bin Laden’s
burial at sea
story was fishy. US President Barack Obama lied when he claimed that Bin
Laden was buried at sea. Bin Laden’s body parts were cut into multiple
pieces, which is similar to suicide attacks following the bombing, so as
not to leave any clue to the US forces to identify him,” added Abdul
Fattah – who was not in Abottabad at the time of Bin Laden’s death, but
says he heard what happened from a Bin Laden relative – in an exclusive
interview with Gulf News.
Abdul Fattah, who was a personal guard
of Bin Laden, confirmed that Bin Laden was wearing an explosive belt all
the time in the last ten years of his life and insisted on not giving
himself up to the Americans.
“US intelligence services had planned
to nab him alive, but they miscalculated. He blew himself up to avoid
capture. Also, he wanted to keep his secrets until death and he had many
sponsors from Gulf States as they were sending him money. He wanted to
rescue them from any trouble. He swore in front of the Kaaba to keep all
his secrets till death,” Abdul Fattah said.
Abdul Fattah pointed
out there is a possibility that one of Bin Laden’s supporters had
betrayed him. “It was hard to infiltrate the close circle around Bin
Laden. His personal guards were only Yemenis or Saudis who wouldn’t be
hired by any hostile party,” Abdul Fattah asserted.
Abdul Fattah
explained how the Americans reached Bin Laden: “A brother of a Kuwaiti
detainee of Pakistani origin in Guantanamo Bay was close to Bin Laden.
He appeared in Kuwait in 2008 when the CIA asked Kuwaiti authorities not
to arrest him or track him down. He used to visit his family and go to
Pakistan with a fake passport. US intelligence services were monitoring
his telephone and tapping all conversations to know his contacts. They
then discovered that he was usually switching off his mobile in a
certain place where they weren’t able to trace him any more.
“After
months of monitoring that guy the Americans failed to find Bin Laden’s
house. They organised a mass vaccination campaign to protect children
against smallpox. As they found Arab children in the area they tested
their DNA to determine the origin of their paternal line. Once US
intelligence services knew of Bin Laden’s and his family’s existence in
the Abbotabad compound, they decided to launch their raid on it.
“Bin
Laden and his men defended themselves. They fired shots at the
helicopter that has carried the US Special Forces unit. As the SEALs
killed two of his guards and shot him in his thigh, he triggered his
explosive belt”.
Abdul Fattah concluded his memorial of Bin
Laden’s death referring to a source close to one of the dead guards. He
refused to mention his name to protect him, adding that “one day Bin
Laden’s wife will tell this story.”
Abdul Fattah recalls what Bin
Laden said to him a long time ago in Makkah, even before he left Saudi
Arabia, “If we manage to draw America into the Afghan quagmire we will
be able to do things that are unprecedented.”
“Among the people
who went to Afghanistan and fought the USSR, we used to say that the
Americans were crazy. They saw and witnessed how the Soviets were
humiliated and left. The Soviets had more perseverance than the
Americans. Soviet soldiers would drink from the sewers, whereas American
soldiers would cry if you took their mineral water away. They need it
even for
showering. The Russians, in contrast, would drink from the
sewage flowing in the streets,” Abdul Fattah added.
“Unfortunately,
what Bin Laden said turned out to be true, because God gave America a
very stupid president [George W. Bush] who sent Americans to
Afghanistan, where they will be defeated,” Abdul Fattah said.
Obama’s
media adviser met Abdul Fattah in Egypt during a conference last year.
Abdul Fattah told him: “You will be defeated, not because you are
fighting the Taliban, but because you are fighting geography and nobody
can beat geography.”
Regarding Jihadist groups’
affiliates with Al
Qaida, Abdul Fattah said that these groups in Egypt’s Sinai and other
places who claim nowadays to be connected to Al Qaida are nothing but a
media show. They say that they belong to Al Qaida in order to scare
people, because it is connected with 9/11 attacks. The truth is that
they never belonged to Al Qaida or know anything about it. Al Qaida has
vanished since the death of Bin Laden.
“The current regime in
Egypt [Muslim Brotherhood] wants to blow this out of proportion, in
order to claim that the alternative is worse. Just like the previous
regime did with regard to the Muslim Brotherhood. They say: the
alternative is worse, so you are
better off with us,” Abdul Fattah
asserted. [GulfNews].