Mansoor Ijaz: Zardari approved Bin Laden operation
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Pakistani-America Mansoor Ijaz, the central character in the memogate scandal, said on Friday that President Asif Ali Zardari gave approval of the Abbottabad operation that led to the killing of Al-Qaeda founder Osama Bin Laden last year by the US Special Forces.
"President Zardari gave the approval for the US forces action," Mr. Ijaz said as he spoke to the Judicial Commission probing the memogate scam from London via video link.
The Commission headed by Justice Faiz Isa resumed hearing of the memo issue at Islamabad High Court on Friday.
Mansoor Ijaz said that President Zardari knew about Abbottabad operation and he telephoned Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) Ashfaq Parvez Kayani that the operation is being carried out with his consent.
Mr Ijaz said that the F-16 planes were ready to counter any operation but President Zardari advised General Kayani not to retaliate.
The Pakistan government has maintained that the May 2, 2011 US action was' unilateral and an attack on the country’s sovereignty'.
The central figure in the memo scandal has been appearing before the commission via video link from Pakistan High Commission in London as he refused to visit Pakistan over security concerns.
During the cross-examination, Mansoor Ijaz made another startling revelation that there was real a threat of military coup in Pakistan following the US covert operation in Abbottabad.
"I had credible information from a well-informed source in the written form that Pakistan was heading towards another coup following the Abbottabad operation. Also, I had received a classified draft about ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) chief (Ahmed Shuja) Pasha’s visit and the Abbottabad operation," Mr Ijaz said, but he refused to reveal the source when asked.
He went on to say that the information about the ‘coup’ was based on the secret draft he had received from a reliable source, adding that he had to pass the ‘memo’ to a higher American official, following the confirmation of former ambassador to the US, Hussain Haqqani’s claim by the officials of the secret services of four different countries.
Following the details given by Hussain Haqqani about the military coup in Pakistan, he had contacted my sources within four top intelligence agencies which also verified the assertion.
“After that I decided to forward the memo to General James Jones," Mansoor Ijaz told the Commission.
To a query by the panel, Mansoor Ijaz agreed to send the classified document, containing all the details about the meetings held between General Kayani and President Zardari on May 12, 2011 after the Abbottabad raid.
The memo commission is headed by Balochistan High Court Chief Justice Qazi Faiz Isa and also include the chief justices of the Sindh Islamabad high courts, Musheer Alam and Iqbal Hameedur Rehman.
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