What Did Pakistan Do To Osama Bin Laden's Wives? Ex-Presidential Aide Reveals Shocking Details

Last Updated:September 13, 2025, 18:40 IST

According to Farhatullah Babar, former spokesperson of ex-President Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistan’s authorities took bin Laden’s wives into custody immediately after his killing

The CIA had reportedly already gathered intricate intelligence about Osama bin Laden’s Abbottabad hideout long before the raid. (File Photo/AP)

The morning of May 2, 2011, is etched in global memory as the day the United States executed one of its most audacious military operations. In a swift 40-minute strike in Abbottabad, Pakistan, US Navy SEALs eliminated Osama bin Laden, the Al-Qaeda chief and mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. The operation not only stunned the world but also left Pakistan’s credibility under intense international scrutiny.

The biggest question that followed was how bin Laden had managed to live undetected for years in a garrison town, barely a stone’s throw away from Pakistan’s military establishment. Equally shrouded in mystery was the fate of his family after his death.

A recent book, The Zardari Presidency: Now It Must Be Told, authored by Farhatullah Babar, former spokesperson of ex-President Asif Ali Zardari, has now shed fresh light on these questions. According to Babar, Pakistan’s authorities took bin Laden’s wives into custody immediately after his killing. However, the most startling revelation is that within days, a CIA team gained direct access to Abbottabad Cantonment and interrogated the women, a development that raised serious concerns over Pakistan’s sovereignty.

Babar notes that the episode left the nation facing what he terms a “national humiliation". He writes that while American agents operated with remarkable freedom on Pakistani soil, the country’s leadership and military appeared to be bending under pressure. The incident, he argues, marked a moment of “failure and embarrassment" for Pakistan.

The book further recounts how, in the aftermath of the raid, senior American figures, including then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Senator John Kerry, arrived in Pakistan. Islamabad, at the time, was desperate for assurances that the US would refrain from unilateral strikes in the future. Yet, Babar observes, the United States offered no categorical guarantees.

Perhaps most damning is the disclosure that the CIA had already gathered intricate intelligence about bin Laden’s Abbottabad hideout long before the raid. The agency, Babar claims, even knew the identity of the contractor who had constructed the compound where the world’s most wanted terrorist was sheltered.

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