Before the 2011 raid, the US had informed the previous prime minister that Osama bin Laden was hiding in Pakistan

The United States had informed Pakistan that Osama bin Laden, the notorious head of al-Qaeda, was holed up in their nation long before American commandos killed him in 2011. Prior to the February 8 general elections in Pakistan, Yusuf Raza Gilani, the former prime minister of that country, made the startling admission in an interview with Geo News.

“Condoleezza Rice (former US Secretary of State) had visited Pakistan and her apprehensions were that he (bin Laden) was in Pakistan,” Gilani said in the course of the conversation.

While Gilani was Pakistan’s prime minister from 2008 to 2012, Rice made four trips there as the country’s secretary of state.

Gilani claims that Rice first met him on a surprise trip to Islamabad in the first week of December 2008, just after the horrific attacks in Mumbai.

“When she shared that, I said it was disinformation,” Gilani responded to a question regarding his handling of Rice on Geo News.

When asked whether the discovery of bin Laden in the Pakistani garrison city of Abbottabad came as a surprise later, Gilani said that it was a “intelligence failure of the world”.

Gilani was also questioned about if the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) provided him with the material via Rice.

“They ought to have provided us with whatever proof they possessed. We would have assisted them since we opposed terrorism, were engaged in a battle against it, suffered the loss of many military personnel and civilian martyrdoms, and lost billions of dollars,” Gilani said.

The former prime minister said that Pakistan’s goal was to block the world media since bin Laden was not a citizen of Pakistan and was foreign-born in his address to the National Assembly of Pakistan, which questioned bin Laden’s status in the country.

(In 2011, after the death of bin Laden, Gilani addressed the Pakistani National Assembly and categorically denied knowing that the al-Qaeda chief was holed up in his nation. He had started his lecture by discussing Pakistan’s past before moving on to discuss how Pakistan cannot be held accountable for the deeds of al Qaeda. Finally, he discussed the relationship between Pakistan and the US, blaming the media for distorting remarks made on Pakistan’s involvement.

This is what Gilani said in the National Assembly of Pakistan.

In response to a query on whether he received a full image of bin Laden from Pakistan’s spy organization, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), or whether he was not given the whole story, Gilani said that he “used to get briefings, and they were very clear.”

From 1988 until his death in 2011, Osama bin Laden, an Islamic dissident and terrorist leader of Saudi descent, led al-Qaeda as its founder and first general emir. The European Union, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the United Nations Security Council, and many other nations have all classified his organization as a terrorist organization.

His most well-known role is that of the mastermind behind the September 11 attacks on American soil.

In Abbottabad, Pakistan, on May 2, 2011, a US military special operations squad killed Osama bin Laden.

Under the code name Operation Neptune Spear, a group of US Navy SEALs from the US Naval Special Warfare Development Group carried out the operation as part of the US CIA, following an order from then-President Barack Obama.