In a startling revelation, former CIA officer John Kiriakou said that Al-Qaeda founder
Osama bin Laden escaped from the Tora Bora mountains in Afghanistan disguised as a woman after the September 11 attacks.
Kiriakou, who served 15 years in the CIA and headed counterterrorism operations in Pakistan, was speaking in an exclusive interview with ANI.
He claimed that US forces believed they had cornered bin Laden and other Al-Qaeda leaders in October 2001.
The CIA did not realize that the translator for the commander of Central Command was actually an Al-Qaeda operative. Believing bin Laden was cornered, US forces told him to come down the mountain, but through the translator, he requested time until dawn to evacuate women and children before surrendering.
“We told him to come down the mountain. He said through the translator, ‘Can you just give us until dawn? We want to evacuate the women and children and then we’ll come down and give up,’” Kiriakou said.
He added: “What ended up happening was bin Laden dressed as a woman and he escaped under the cover of darkness in the back of a pickup truck into Pakistan,” Kiriakou said.
By dawn, Tora Bora was empty, forcing the US to shift operations into Pakistan.
The former officer said that in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the United States initially reacted cautiously.
“First, the United States was reactive at the time rather than proactive. We waited a month until we had proper buildup in the region, and then we began attacking known Al-Qaeda sites, mostly in the Pashto areas of southern and eastern Afghanistan,” Kiriakou explained.
Kiriakou also discussed the role of Pakistan in the operation. At the time, US relations with Pakistan were reportedly strong under then-President Pervez Musharraf.
“Our relations with the Pakistani government were very, very good. We essentially just purchased Musharraf… he would let us do whatever we wanted to do,” Kiriakou said.
He highlighted that Pakistan’s military had its own priorities, focusing more on India than on counterterrorism, allowing extremists to operate while pretending to cooperate with the US.
The former CIA officer further revealed early links between Al-Qaeda and Lashkar-e-Taiba. During a raid in Lahore in March 2002, US forces captured three Lashkar-e-Taiba fighters along with an Al-Qaeda training manual.
“It was the very first time we could attach the Pakistani government to Al-Qaeda,” Kiriakou said, emphasizing how this discovery highlighted the broader regional threats.
Kiriakou admitted that strategic decisions were heavily influenced by US interests in Pakistan.
“The relationship with Pakistan was bigger than India, at least temporarily. We needed them more than they needed us. We really needed them to let us base our drones in Balochistan, for example,” he said.
He also spoke about the eventual tracking of bin Laden. The terrorist leader was found in Abbottabad, Pakistan and killed by US special forces on May 2, 2011.
Reflecting on the overall counterterrorism efforts, Kiriakou said the initial failure to capture bin Laden at Tora Bora underscored the complexities of intelligence, infiltration and regional politics.
“We thought we had him cornered, but the combination of deception, local dynamics, and strategic constraints meant the fight had to shift to Pakistan proper,” he said, giving a rare insight into the operational and political challenges faced by the US in the early years after 9/11.