US dropped bid to kill al-Qaeda chief to please Pakistan

New Delhi: A secret military operation in early 2005 to capture senior members of al Qaeda in Pakistan’s tribal areas was aborted at the last minute after top Bush administration officials decided it was too risky and could jeopardise relations with Pakistan, the New York Times reported on Saturday.

The target was a meeting of Qaeda leaders that intelligence officials thought included Ayman al-Zawahri, Osama bin Laden’s top deputy and the man believed to run the terrorist group’s operations.

But the mission was called off after Donald Rumsfeld, the then defense secretary, rejected an 11th-hour appeal by Porter Goss, the then director of the Central Intelligence Agency, officials said.

Members of a Navy Seals unit in parachute gear had already boarded C-130 cargo planes in Afghanistan when the mission was canceled, a former senior intelligence official involved in the planning told the New York Times.

Rumsfeld felt the mission, which grew from a small number of personnel to several hundred, would risk too many American lives, and he was also concerned about possible repercussions on US-Pakistan relations, the New York Times said.

But that decision also frustrated some top intelligence officials and members of the military's secret special operations units. Some said the United States missed a significant opportunity to possibly nab senior al Qaeda members, the newspaper reported.

Another concern was his determination that the United States could not carry out the mission without Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's permission, which was unlikely given its size and scope, the officials said.

The former intelligence official involved in the mission's planning said it grew to the point where "the whole thing turned into the invasion of Pakistan," which he nonetheless felt was still worth the risk.

"We wanted to take a shot," the official added. Several former officials said it was not the only time since the September 11, 2001 attacks that plans were developed for a large US military force in Pakistan, the Times said.

The newspaper said it was not clear whether President Bush was informed about the planned operation.

(With agency inputs)