Ashfaq Parvez Kayani asked Barack Obama to announce Osama's killing: Panetta

WASHINGTON: The then Pakistan Army Chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani asked the US to inform the world about the killing of al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in a covert raid by American forces in an effort to prevent domestic backlash, according to former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.

Panetta, who was the CIA Director at the time of the raid over compound in Abbottabad in Pakistan, in his latest book writes that the then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen called General Kayani to inform him about the raid and death of the most wanted terrorist.
Taken aback by the information, Kayani told Mullen that the US should announce the news to the world.

With Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy listening in and taking notes, Mullen placed the call and informed Kayani that "we had conducted a covert operation against bin Laden".

Kayani replied, "It is very good that you arrested him." "He's dead," Mullen said. "That seemed to take Kayani aback, as did the information that bin Laden had been living in the (Abbottabad) compound for five years," Panetta writes.

"Somewhat to our surprise, Kayani responded by asking us to make the announcement, figuring that at least that would leave ambiguous the question of Pakistan's participation in the raid," Panetta writes in his book 'Worthy Fights: A Memoir of Leadership in War and Peace' which hit the stores today.

Soon thereafter everyone from the US national security team gathered in the Situation Room, where in President Barack Obama decided to go ahead and address the nation later in the night to share the news with his countrymen and the world.

But before his nationally televised address, he spoke with the then Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari over phone.

"Obama then called Pakistani President Zadari and Afghan President (Hamid) Karzai, and I made a similar call to (the then ISI chief) Lt Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha. He had just heard of the raid, and his response to me was largely one of resignation," Panetta writes.

"I told him that we had made the deliberate decision to exclude him and his agency from our planning, and hoped that it would relieve them of any blowback from having cooperated. He wearily replied that 'there's not much to say. I'm glad you got bin Laden'," the former CIA chief says.

According to him, Obama wanted to wait for the DNA report before going public, but he decided to himself make the announcement after Kayani insisted to do so.

Osama was killed in Pakistan on May 2, 2011 by US special forces during a covert raid.