The unholy alliance of Nawaz, Osama Bin Laden, Gen.(R)Gul and Khawaja

After claims of close ties between Osama bin Laden and PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif by the British author and journalist Simon Reeves, a former Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) officer named Khalid Khawaja has revealed similar facts during his interview to different media outlets including a Pakistani TV channel.

According to the information given by Simon Reeves in his book “The New Jackals: Ramzi Yousaf, Osama bin Laden and the future of terrorism”, backed by that of Khalid Khawaja, Bin Laden not only sponsored the election campaign of former prime minister and PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif in 1988 but paid him large sums of money to ensure protection of Al Qaeda operatives in Pakistan and to “Islamise” the state and society.

Khawaja, who also runs a non-government organisation with the name of Defence for Human Rights, has claimed in an interview to a local TV channel that Bin Laden had held five meetings with PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif.

He further stated that he had arranged these meetings between the Al Qaeda leader and Nawaz on the former prime minister’s request. He also said that he could produce evidence of these meetings to counter the denial by PML-N spokesman Siddique ul Farooq who said that no such meetings ever took place.

However, Khawaja denied that he ever stated that Osama gave more than Rs 500 million to Nawaz Sharif. He said hopefully Nawaz Sharif would not “tell a lie” in this regard, and added that the statement of PML-N spokesman Siddique ul Farooq was untrue that no such meetings had taken place.

Khawaja said that he used to be a close associate of Bin Laden in the past and might have met him more than a hundred times but he never met him after the 9/11 terror attacks.

A blogger at ABCNews.com had previously quoted the former ISI official as stating that Nawaz took a million dollar payoff from Bin Laden for turning a blind eye to Al Qaeda operatives in Pakistan.

ABC News also confirmed the same incident of payoff by quoting former FBI agent Jack Cloonan who used to interrogate one of the key Al Qaeda operatives in US custody, Ali Muhammad.

Cloonan, who is currently working as an ABC News consultant, claimed that Ali had once told him that Bin Laden paid Nawaz’s representatives $1 million for not cracking down on the militants in the Northwest Frontier Province.

Simon Reeves states in his book that after re-establishing Al Qaeda, one of Bin Laden’s first actions was to try and guarantee the security of his men living in Pakistani refugee camps by throwing money at the election campaign of Nawaz Sharif, “an energetic Pakistani politician” standing for the election of Prime Minister.

He also states in his book that Nawaz had received the money from Bin Laden with a promise to convert Pakistan into a strict Islamic state.

An American website named History Commons Website has not only confirmed Cloonan’s claim but has also mentioned another book by Scott-Clark and Levy, claiming that General Hameed Gul had contacted Osama Bin Laden who was then known to provide financial support to the Afghan mujahideen, to pay for a coup and assassination of the late Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.