A couple of Islamist protesters hold up a poster with a picture of Osama bin Laden
IN PHOTO: A couple of Islamist protesters hold up a poster with a picture of Osama bin Laden that reads, "Man humiliated Americans. He lives benign and died a martyr" during a protest march at the main entrance of the state security headquarters in Cairo May 2, 2013. Egyptian security forces fired tear gas to disperse a small group of hardline Islamist protesters who were attempting to scale the walls of the state security headquarters in a Cairo suburb late Thursday night. REUTERS/Amr Abdallah Dalsh

Germany's foreign intelligence agency Bundesnachrichtendienst or the BND disclosed to the U.S. that Osama bin Laden was in Pakistan with the full knowledge of its security authorities. The BND spy service had provided a tip off to the U.S. that ultimately made it possible for the country to hunt down Osama and shoot to death the dreaded chief of al Qaeda who was the mastermind of the gory 9/11 attacks.

Germany's Bild am Sonntag newspaper revealed this piece of hot news saying that the information sprung when a BND informant from Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency or the ISI had confirmed the same. The report owes its origin to some unidentified sources from within the CIA.

The BND had lent assistance to the U.S. intelligence through its base in the Bavarian town of Bad Aibling to oversee email and telephone traffic in northern Pakistan, before bin Laden was shot dead in May 2011 by U.S. special forces there. The report says that the BND used its Bad Aibling listening post to monitor the same in order to make sure that the planned the U.S. Navy SEALS' operation remained covert.

Nevertheless, Pakistan is in a denial mode. It refuses to accept that it had knowledge of bin Laden's whereabouts within its own confines. It even says that it did not know of the planned attack on Osama in Abbottabad.

Meanwhile there is concern in Germany over how much the BND has helped the National Security Agency or the NSA of the U.S. Recent reports state that the German spy agency had lent aid to the NSA during its spying activities on prime European targets like the French presidency and the European Commission.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's government has come under vehement criticism by the opposition that accuses it of remaining unfazed in the face of BND's actions. They have also affirmed that before the 2013 election, the government lied over the prospects of a possible U.S.-German “no-spy deal.”

Following the claims, it was reported the BND began to restrain itself while cooperating with the NSA. But as recently as last week, Wikileaks had made known unclassified transcripts from a parliamentary inquiry that began last year to probe US intelligence activities on German soil.

News portal Spiegel Online has pointed out that the newspaper report about the German spy agency's "apparent act of heroism" was published "right in the middle of the BND affair" and asked "is it plausible?"

The writer can be contacted at ritambanati@yahoo.com.

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