Fourteen years after al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was killed by US Navy SEALs in a covert operation in Abbottabad, the shadow of his presence still looms large over Pakistan’s security narrative. And in the latest turn of irony only Pakistan’s military establishment could serve up, the ghost of bin Laden is back—this time, through bloodlines.Read: India-Pakistan Tension – live updates At the centre of the current controversy is Lieutenant General Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, the suave and media-trained Director General of Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), the Pakistani military’s propaganda wing. While Gen Chaudhry has become the face of Pakistan’s official messaging following the Indian military’s Operation Sindoor—a retaliatory strike that wiped out nine terror camps across Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir—the scrutiny has shifted to his father: Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood, a nuclear scientist who once had tea and theological debates with none other than Osama bin Laden.Yes, the same bin Laden who was later found and killed in a compound just a stone’s throw from the Pakistan Military Academy, raising serious questions about how such a high-value target could hide in plain sight.
A Father, a Nuclear Scientist, and an Infamous Meeting
Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood was not just any nuclear scientist. He played key roles in Pakistan’s Kahuta Enrichment Plant and Chashma Nuclear Project. After retiring, he founded an organisation called Ummah Tameer-e-Nau (UTN), which, among other things, proposed—earnestly—using djinns to produce electricity. Somewhere along this delusional path, he also met with bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri in Afghanistan months before 9/11.US intelligence agencies were alarmed by the possibility that a Pakistani nuclear scientist had direct access to al-Qaeda leadership. Mahmood was picked up, questioned, and later released. But the damage was done: he was placed on Pakistan’s Exit Control List and became a symbol of how porous the walls are between Pakistan’s scientific, military, and extremist circles.Now, his son—Lt Gen Chaudhry—is spearheading Pakistan’s information warfare while claiming victimhood. As AIMIM leader Asaduddin Owaisi put it: “Osama bin Laden was found taking shelter in a military area of Pakistan. It is for the Western world to realise that Pakistan is a failed state… their nuclear bombs must be disarmed.”A Long Line of Terror EntanglementsThe bin Laden saga is just one chapter in a thick volume of accusations:
- The 2008 Mumbai attacks, which killed over 170 people, were carried out by Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), a Pakistan-based group whose handlers operated with ISI support. The trial in the US of David Headley confirmed ISI’s links to the attackers.
- The 2005 London bombings had connections to individuals who trained in Pakistan’s tribal areas. British intelligence later revealed that the perpetrators had been radicalised and trained in madrassas and camps in Pakistan.
- Pulwama 2019, where 40 Indian CRPF jawans were killed, was claimed by Jaish-e-Mohammed, another Pakistan-based group. Despite global pressure, Islamabad neither shut down the group’s operations nor arrested its leadership meaningfully.
- Daniel Pearl’s 2002 beheading was orchestrated by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed—who was captured in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, in 2003. Again, within spitting distance of Pakistani military installations.
- Abu Zubaydah, Ramzi Yousef, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed—all major al-Qaeda operatives—were captured in Pakistan, sometimes living comfortably with ISI protection, until they weren’t.
Even today, Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) remain breeding grounds for Taliban offshoots, al-Qaeda remnants, and more recently, Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which has carried out multiple attacks within Pakistan itself.
