Islamabad was left red-faced on foreign television as British TV host Piers Morgan schooled a Pakistani podcaster over his claim on state-sponsored terrorism and the circumstances surrounding the elimination of 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden.
Popular YouTuber Ranveer Allahbadia, who participated in a debate along with Pakistan’s Shehzad Ghias Shaikh, held up Laden’s photo and the viral image showing Pakistan’s military officers attending the funeral of terrorists killed during Operation Sindoor.
The presence of Hafiz Abdur Rauf, a globally designated terrorist and the brother of Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar, at the funeral had once again exposed the long-known military-terror nexus in Pakistan.
Holding up Laden’s photo, Mr Allahbadia pointed out to the host and the Pakistani panellist, “He was found 800 metres from a military base in Pakistan. That’s the face the world recognises.”
Then he held up the second image and said, “This is the face that India recognises.” “This man is a UN-designated terrorist being celebrated by the Pakistani military in the background. That’s not the narrative the Pakistanis give, or the world knows. But if you check with the UN or US, they will tell you this is Abdul Rauf.”
“We export vaccines, philosophy, engineers, and leaders to the world. That’s why our economy is 11 times that of Pakistan,” he said.
Osama bin Laden, the founder of al-Qaeda and mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, was killed during a covert operation by the US forces in Pakistan’s Abbottabad, not far from one of the country’s top military academies.
Defending the Pakistani leadership over the bin Laden safehouse, Shaikh claimed that the terrorist was hiding from the Pakistani intelligence in Abbottabad before he was eliminated by the US forces in 2011.
Morgan shot back: “What you just said is utterly ludicrous.”
“Osama bin Laden was found literally living in a house for years, a few hundred yards from one of Pakistan’s main military bases. If your intelligence didn’t know he was there, it must be that they are the worst intelligence in the history of military intelligence. All they had to do was get a pair of binoculars, and they would have found one of the most wanted terrorists in the world who committed one of the worst terror attacks in history,” said Morgan.
When the Pakistani podcaster tried to bring in Mossad and the American intel agency CIA into the discourse, Morgan replied sternly, “You don’t dispute Osama bin Laden living literally down the road from one of your biggest bases…nobody knew he was living next door?”
