Seemingly overnight, the moderate Islamic cleric and Canadian émigré Tahir-ul Qadri, whose massive protest forced Pakistan’s government to agree to major concessions on Thursday, has risen from obscurity to become a force to be reckoned with in Pakistani politics.

Until this week, local TV anchors and headlines did not scream his name, as they do now. His face was not plastered on rickshaws and lampposts, nor on signs carried by the 50,000 people who followed him to a sit-in, camp-out, anti-government protest in the cold and rainy streets of Islamabad, where they remain, celebrating his negotiated agreement with government representatives.

But the 62-year-old Qadri landed squarely at the center of Pakistan's latest political crisis, which saw a population desperate for change and frustrated by leaders long-accused of corruption and ineptitude seize upon his message of free, fair elections and accountability at the highest levels.

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Qadri, who only returned to his homeland in late 2012, had demanded the immediate dissolution of the current government and sweeping reforms to guarantee free and fair national elections, which are expected to be held this spring. He agreed to something less in Thursday's declaration, signed after hours-long, closed-door discussions with government representatives. The deal calls for the dissolution of the current government before March 16, with elections to take place within 90 days, and a pledge to enforce Pakistan's Constitution regarding the eligibility of political candidates. 

Despite denying having any political ambitions, Qadri made himself a part of the political process by stipulating in the declaration that meetings to discuss Pakistan's Election Commission make-up would be held at his office's headquarters and that his own political party -- the Pakistan Awami Tehreek -- would help select a caretaker prime minister. 

Lahore-based defense analyst Hasan Askari Rizvi said that Qadri fell short of his aims.

"His assessment was that as he raises populist demands, other groups and parties will fall in line and he will become the undisputed and popular leader of Pakistan. This did not happen," Rizvi said. "However, the federal government in Islamabad has become hostage, because he has brought huge number of his followers to Islamabad, making it impossible for the government to take any action against him."

Still, for a country built on a feudal mentality, where political loyalties are handed down over generations like family heirlooms, Qadri’s accomplishments are no small feat.

So how did he do it? One former government official, who attended a Qadri rally this week, heard him address the crowd, and spoke to those in attendance, called that "the million dollar question."

"This chap .. he comes here and he holds a huge public meeting in Lahore, which is very well organized and very well-attended, and then this enormous march to Islamabad?" wondered the official, who spoke with NBC News on condition of anonymity. "How did this happen? Who's supporting him? It's a mystery to me." 

Professor C. Christine Fair, who teaches at Georgetown University and studies Pakistan, calls Qadri's sudden emergence on the national stage "theater,” and suspects the country’s powerful military helped to engineer the cleric’s return and organize his massive protest.

"If this came out of civil society, he'd be universally lauded,” she said. “The reason he's not is that a lot of people think he's got an invisible hand behind him. This isn't Pakistani civil society saying enough is enough. It's something else."

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For the last seven years, Qadri has by all accounts led a quiet life in Toronto, where he immigrated with his wife and children. But he'd made a name for himself in certain Pakistani circles much earlier. 

In the mid-1980s, early in the presidential tenure of Gen. Zia-ul-Haq, the young Qadri was already a known quantity in the corridors of power.

According to a former government official, Qadri was one of a handful of Islamic scholars called in to present his views on how a proper Islamic state should function to Zia -- who came to power in 1977 in a military coup and launched the Islamization of Pakistan -- and his cabinet. Whether or not his input was used is unclear, but he left an impression -- that of a confident, moderate, articulate young scholar who was incredibly knowledgeable on Islam. 

His early political career in Pakistan, however, was brief and largely forgettable. He founded the Pakistan Awami Tehreek (PAT) political party in 1989, listing education as its top priority and promising to revive "the faith of the masses in politics, elections and the government." Qadri briefly held office as a member of parliament during the military dictatorship of Gen. Pervez Musharraf, from 2002 until he resigned in protest in 2004. One local report at the time quoted him as saying that Musharraf had reduced parliament's power to "a rubber stamp." 

"I don't feel that I should sit in such a powerless parliament which can be suspended with a single stroke of a general's pen," he told Pakistan's Daily Times at the time. 

But after leaving the political arena, Qadri succeeded in developing an international network and loyal following in religious and social circles. In 1981, he established an organization called Minaj-ul-Quran International (MQI), founded to promote "true Islamic teachings and philosophy" for those "dissatisfied with the existing religious institutions and organizations and their narrow-minded approach," according to the group's website. 

The MQI manifesto espouses, "Love, peace, harmony, universal brotherhood, justice, equity and prosperity," and boasts a registered membership of 280,000 worldwide. The organization claims to be operating in more than 90 countries, including operating 69 educational and cultural centers in Pakistan, and 600 schools educating 170,000 students across the country. A social welfare and disaster relief sister organization was added in 1989, which the website says has delivered aid to victims of "the Tsunami affecting Indonesia; the Bam earthquake, Iran; the South Asian earthquake in Pakistan, as well as various developments and educational projects in Pakistan and other underprivileged countries."

Pakistan's envoy to US faces potentially deadly blasphemy charge

After founding MQI, Qadri appears to have spent years trying to be heard and cultivating his public image. He wrote books (1,000 of them, according to his website, of which 43 have been published), delivered lectures (5,000 total, 1,500 of which are available for purchase on CD or DVD at MQI sale centers "around the world"). His message and achievements are cross-published and highlighted on multiple websites, including those of his Islamic organization, his political party and his personal site. 

But it wasn't until March 2010 that he strode onto the international stage. Qadri wrote and published a 500-page “fatwa,” or Islamic decree, "to place the Islamic stance on terrorism precisely in its proper perspective before the Western and Islamic worlds." The document, which is available for download in four different languages, lays out Quranic laws prohibiting terrorism and the killing of others in the name of Islam. At the time, nine years into the West's "War on Terror," his unequivocal language condemning terrorist acts set him apart from most Muslim scholars, and the world took note. His fatwa won praise from the U.S. State Department, drew international news coverage and made Qadri a sought-after speaker on the international circuit. 

In November 2010, he came to Washington, D.C., and delivered a lecture at Georgetown University's Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding. He spoke at the United States Institute of Peace that same month about the struggle against radicalism in Islam. He traveled to England and Australia to discuss terrorism and integration. But back in Pakistan -- where gas prices ballooned, power shortages proliferated and terrorism intensified -- Qadri remained a non-player. 

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But while he enjoyed success in his adopted country, Qadri's home country was in precipitous decline. 

The International Monetary Fund last year issued a dismal report on Pakistan's deteriorating economy, citing "deep seated and structural problems and weak macroeconomic policies" that have led to low GDP growth and a drain of foreign exchange reserves. Terrorist attacks have killed tens of thousands of Pakistanis and left the country teetering on the precipice of security chaos. A 2012 Gallup survey revealed President Asif Ali Zardari's performance ratings had plummeted and that 87 percent of Pakistanis believed the country was headed in the wrong direction. Power struggles between the military, judiciary and ruling government persisted, preventing legislators hell bent on maintaining their posts from turning their full attention to the nation's needs. 

Many thought the answer to the country's ills lay with former cricketer-turned-presidential-candidate Imran Khan. His self-proclaimed "tsunami" of supporters, inspired by his reputation as an outsider determined to change the system, set attendance records at his rallies, and gave Pakistan's notoriously rough-and-tumble journalists someone to cast as the political dark horse. But the candidate of change lost some of his shine in the Fall of 2012, when he began cherry-picking senior members of the same political parties he was criticizing for his leadership team. One senior adviser, Shireen Mazari, resigned from his party in protest in September. In her resignation letter, she accused Khan of trading his original ideals for “traditional ‘electables.’”

For a country seeking salvation, Qadri, free from the confines of political process, checks the boxes that others in the current cast of characters in Pakistani politics cannot. 

"Who are the other people to be supported?" asked one former government official, who also spoke on condition of anonymity. "They are maybe not as incompetent and corrupt (as the current government leaders), but they are very good runners-up."

Qadri's message, on the other hand, has been simple and consistent. 

He has demanded free, fair and transparent elections in a country where political patronage is often bought. He's demanded that political candidates meet the constitutional requirements for candidacy, such as paying their taxes. A recent investigation by Pakistani journalist Umar Cheema found that fewer than one-third of Pakistan's members of parliament file annual tax returns, including president Zardari. 

Rizvi says Qadri's support is borne of "widespread alienation" in Pakistan, and is in reaction to the poor performance by the federal and provincial governments. 

PhotoBlog: Declaring victory from behind bulletproof glass

But professor Fair believes Qadri's quick rise has all the hallmarks of Pakistan's powerful military, which has historically worked to influence policy and force political turnover -- both behind the scenes and through direct intervention. Though the military leadership has publicly taken a backseat during power struggles playing out before national elections, she believes it is privately pulling strings to prevent the same government officials from winning a majority, and to keep its hand in the game.

"They know that Pakistanis will not tolerate a direct military intervention. And this is (going to be) the second peaceful transition where parliament serves out its full term in Pakistan," Fair said of the military leaders. "Every time it happens, it makes it more difficult for the army to intervene. I don't think the intention is to overthrow the government -- it's to weaken the PPP (ruling party) before elections."

In an interview this week with NBC News, Qadri lambasted the current government as a "total failure," but insisted his goal was to reform, not topple it.

"We want to eradicate our political process and electoral process from might, money and manipulation," he said. "We want true democracy in place.”

He vehemently denied any support from Pakistan's military, or from external forces, as has been speculated in the local press, calling it "a false accusation," and "disinformation."

Now that he has the ear of the country and its leaders, it's unclear what Qadri will do next. 

Under the agreement signed Thursday, he has a role to play in the lead-up to elections. And while he insists he holds no political ambitions, that doesn't stop him from comparing himself to the elected-leader of the United States when asked what he stands for.

"I would say my slogan is like the slogan of Obama in America," he said. "He stood for change. If Americans accepted the slogan of change and voted for him, why not the same change? Democratically formed, the change in the corrupt system, why not the same change, democratically, peacefully should come in Pakistan?” 

NBC's Wajahat S. Khan and Fakhar Rehman in Islamabad, and Mushtaq Yousafzai in Peshawar, contributed to this report.

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A senior al-Qaida official and potential successor to the group’s leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed Friday morning in a Predator drone strike, according to reports on jihadi web forums and U.S. officials.

Sheikh Khalid Bin Abdul Rehman Al-Hussainan, aka Abu-Zaid al Kuwaiti, was killed in Pakistan while eating breakfast, according to the accounts.  The 46-year-old cleric was seen as part of the “very top tier" of al-Qaida's remaining leaders in the wake of the death of Osama bin Laden, according to one expert on the terror group.

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The news was first announced on an al-Qaida web forum early Friday. “We celebrate to you the news of the martyrdom of the working scholar Shaykh Khalid al-Hussainan (Abu Zaid al-Kuwaiti) while eating his Suhoor (dawn time) meal, and we ask Allah to accept him in paradise," a post said.

Evan Kohlmann, an NBC News counterterrorism analyst, said al-Hussainan was at the forefront of a new wave of al-Qaida leadership.

“That's a big gap in the leadership,” said Kohlmann, who is also a Justice Department consultant. “He was the last senior Al-Qaida leader in the Afghanistan-Pakistan area who was, one, from the Arabian Peninsula and, two, who had serious clerical credentials.  Now there is no obvious publicly recognizable candidate left to succeed Zawahiri.”

In recent years, al-Hussainan was seen in numerous al-Qaida videos offering religious training to the group’s operatives. The videos were widely circulated by al-Shabab, al-Qaida’s media wing. He also authored several books of religious thoughts.

The U.S. killed three other up-and-coming members of the terror group’s next generation leadership in the months after bin Laden was killed in a raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan, by U.S. Navy SEALs in May 2011. Ilyas Kashmiri, the leader of a Pakistani group associated with al-Qaeda was killed June 3. Atiyah Abd-al Rahman, bin Laden’s chief of staff, was killed on Aug. 22 and Ayman al-Awlaki, a U.S. citizen who was a leader of Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, was killed Sept. 30. US officials say that hints about their whereabouts were found in materials gathered by the Navy SEALs in the raid on bin Laden’s compound.

Al-Hussainan is the highest ranking al-Qaida official to be killed since those leaders were killed.

Mike Leiter, the former director of the National Counter Terrorism Center and an NBC News analyst, said it’s important to keep going after top officials to keep al-Qaida off balance.

“We are taking out the generation following those left from the 9-11 era leadership,” Leiter said. “If you can get into this level of leadership consistently, it becomes very difficult for al-Qaida in Pakistan to become a serious threat to the homeland.”

The fact that the attack was carried out by a Predator shows that the US intends to keep using the drones to kill al-Qaida, despite criticism from Pakistani officials and U.S. critics, said Roger Cressey, former deputy director of the White House counter terrorism center and an NBC News analyst.

 “Anyone who believes that the drone program has run its course needs to know that people like al Kuwaiti are still out there,” he said.

Robert Windrem is a senior investigative producer for NBC News.

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GILGIT, Pakistan -- About 20 men dressed as Pakistani soldiers boarded a bus bound for a Muslim festival outside this mountain town and checked the identification cards of the passengers. They singled out 19 Shiites, drew weapons and slaughtered them, most with a bullet to the head.

The shooters weren't soldiers. They were a hit squad linked to the Sunni Muslim extremist group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, or LeJ. They had trekked in along a high Himalayan pass that hot August morning to waylay a convoy of pilgrims.

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Here and across Pakistan, violent Sunni radicals are on the march against the nation's Shiite minority.

With a few hundred hard-core cadres, the highly secretive LeJ aims to trigger sectarian violence that would pave the way for a Sunni theocracy in U.S.-allied Pakistan, say Pakistan police and intelligence officials. Its immediate goal, they say, is to stoke the intense Sunni-Shiite violence that has pushed countries like Iraq close to civil war.

More than 300 Shiites have been killed in Pakistan so far this year in sectarian conflict, according to human rights groups. The campaign is gathering pace in rural as well as urban areas such as Karachi, Pakistan's biggest city. The Shiites are a big target, accounting for up to 20 percent of this nation of 180 million.

In January, LeJ claimed responsibility for a homemade bomb that exploded in a crowd of Shiites in Punjab province, killing 18 and wounding 30. LeJ's reach extends beyond Pakistan: Late last year, LeJ claimed responsibility for bombings in Afghanistan that killed 59 people, the worst sectarian attacks since the fall of the Taliban government in 2001.

"No doubt - (LeJ) are the most dangerous group," said Chaudhry Aslam, a top counterterrorism police commando based in Karachi, whose house was blown up by the LeJ. "We will fight them until the last drop of blood."

For an outlawed group accused of fomenting such mayhem, the leader of LeJ is surprisingly easy to find.

Malik Ishaq spent 14 years in jail in connection with dozens of murder and terrorism cases. He was released after the charges could not be proved - partly because of witness intimidation, officials say - and showered with rose petals by hundreds of supporters when he left prison in July 2011.

Although Ishaq is one of Pakistan's most feared militants, he enjoys the protection of followers clutching AK-47 assault rifles in the narrow lane outside his home. There, in the town of Rahim Yar Khan in southern Punjab province, Reuters visited him for an interview.

"The state should declare Shiites as non-Muslims on the basis of their beliefs," said Ishaq, calling them the "greatest infidels on Earth." Young supporters with shoulder-length hair in imitation of the Prophet Mohammad hung on every word.

Following the trail
To assess the LeJ threat, Reuters followed the group's trail across Pakistan -- from Ishaq's compound, to Gilgit in the foothills of the Himalayas, recruiting grounds in central Punjab and the backstreets of Karachi on the Arabian Sea coast.

In interviews, police, intelligence officials, clerics and LeJ members described a group that has grown more robust and appears to be operating across a much wider area in Pakistan than just a few years ago. But it had a head start.

The LeJ once enjoyed the open support of the powerful spy agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence. The ISI used such groups as military proxies in India and Afghanistan and to counter Shiite militant groups.

Since being outlawed after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, LeJ has worked with Sunni radical groups al-Qaida and the Pakistani Taliban in several high-profile strikes. Among them were assaults in 2009 on Pakistan's military headquarters and on Sri Lanka's visiting cricket team. Washington says LeJ was involved in the killing of Wall Street Journal correspondent Daniel Pearl in 2002.

Now it is gathering strength anew. The risks are heightened by Pakistan's long-standing role as a battlefield in a proxy war between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shiite Iran, which have been competing for influence in Asia and the Middle East since the 1979 Iranian revolution.

That competition has heated up since the United States toppled secularist dictator Saddam Hussein in Iraq and left the country under the control of an Iranian-influenced Shiite government. Intelligence officials say the LeJ is drawing financial support from Saudi donors and other Sunni sources.

"Unfortunately, the state for strategic reasons turned a blind eye to the LeJ for a long time," said a retired army general. "Now we have a situation where it has become Pakistan's Frankenstein."

Interior Minister Rehman Malik, who is in charge of internal security, told Reuters that "we always take action" against the LeJ when the group is suspected of murder or terrorism. "We track people and arrest them."

When asked why those arrested are often freed, he said: "Look, my job is to arrest people, not to let them go. We all know who lets them off the hook and why," he said, referring to local politicians and elements of the military who turn a blind eye to their activities or even support them in some cases.

Sacred calling
Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, whose name means Soldiers of Jhangvi (after its founder, Haq Maulana Nawab Jhangvi), isn't the only lethal militant group that once enjoyed patronage from the spy agency.

One is Lashkar-e-Taiba (Soldiers of the Pure), which fights against Indian control in disputed Kashmir. It is blamed for several deadly attacks on Indian soil, including the November 2008 attacks in Mumbai, and an audacious raid on India's parliament in December 2001 with another Kashmiri militant group, Jaishi-e-Mohammad (Army of Mohammad). That raid brought India and Pakistan to the brink of war.

Another is the Pakistani Taliban. Its attack this month on 14-year-old Malala Yousafzai in Swat was only the most recent in a long list of strikes on civilian and military targets, mainly in the unruly tribal area along the Afghan border.

What makes LeJ particularly dangerous, however, is that the group is based in Pakistan's Punjab heartland. And it is not just attacking targets in Pakistan's neighbors, but has also targeted the state, including the 2009 attack on Pakistan's military headquarters.

LeJ was established as an offshoot of another anti-Shiite organization called Sipah-e-Sahaba (Soldiers of Mohammad's Companions).

LeJ believes it has a sacred calling -- to protect the legacy of the companions of the Prophet Mohammad - and it sees Shi'ites as the main threat.

Mahmood Baber, educated in a madrassa, was drawn by LeJ's call to holy war against Shiite infidels. His 16-year career in the movement ended in October, when he and other LeJ members were arrested.

Handcuffed and with a cloth thrown over his head at a Karachi police station, Baber described for Reuters the "great satisfaction" he felt killing 14 Shiite "terrorists" over the years. His voice choked with emotion when he said that for 1,400 years Shiites had insulted the companions of the Prophet.

"Get rid of Shiites. That is our goal. May God help us," he said, before intelligence agents led him away for a fresh round of interrogation.

The schism between Sunnis and Shiites developed after the Prophet Muhammad died in 632 when his followers could not agree on a successor. Sunnis recognize the first four caliphs as his rightful successors; the Shiites believe the prophet named his son-in-law, Ali. Emotions over the issue have boiled through modern times and even pushed some countries, including Iraq five years ago, to the brink of civil war.

Demonizing Iran
The LeJ's leader, Ishaq, lives in a house whose gate bears a sign inviting residents of the town to debate whether Shiites are infidels.

These days Ishaq calls himself a leader of Sipah-e-Sahaba, the LeJ parent group. Pakistani officials say he still runs, or at least inspires, LeJ. Ishaq denies any wrongdoing, repeatedly saying: "I've been acquitted." He has indeed been acquitted 34 times on charges of culpable homicide and terrorism.

He does not hide his feelings about Shiites, his voice growing strident as he opened a plastic folder filled with printouts from what he describes as Shi'ite Internet sites.

One contained a photo of a pig, an animal considered by Muslims to be dirty, and is accompanied by an insult to Sunnis. Another alleges the Prophet Mohammad's wife committed adultery -- all proof, he says, that Shiites are blasphemous, and deserve punishment.

"Whoever insults the companions of the Holy Prophet should be given a death sentence," Ishaq declares.

Ishaq and other hardline Sunnis believe that Iran is trying to foment revolution in Pakistan to turn it into a Shi'ite state, though no evidence for that is offered.

The Saudi connection
In the Punjab town of Jhang, LeJ's birthplace, SSP leader Maulana Mohammad Ahmed Ludhianvi describes what he says are Tehran's grand designs. Iranian consular offices and cultural centers, he alleges, are actually a front for its intelligence agencies.

"If Iranian interference continues it will destroy this country," said Ludhianvi in an interview in his home. The state provides him with armed guards, fearful any harm done to him could trigger sectarian bloodletting.

The Iranian embassy in Islamabad, asked for a response to that allegation, issued a statement denouncing sectarian violence.

"What is happening today in the name of sectarianism has nothing to do with Muslims and their ideologies," it said.

Ludhianvi insisted he was just a politician. "I would like to tell you that I am not a murderer, I am not a killer, I am not a terrorist. We are a political party."

After a meal of chicken, curry and spinach, Ludhianvi and his aides stood up to warmly welcome a visitor: Saudi Arabia-based cleric Malik Abdul Haq al-Meqqi.

A Pakistani cleric knowledgeable about Sunni groups described Meqqi as a middleman between Saudi donors and intelligence agencies and the LeJ, the SSP and other groups.

"Of course, Saudi Arabia supports these groups. They want to keep Iranian influence in check in Pakistan, so they pay," the Pakistani cleric said. His account squared with that of a Pakistani intelligence agent, who said jailed militants had confessed that LeJ received Saudi funding.

Saudi cleric Meqqi denied that, and SSP leader Ludhianvi concurred: "We have not taken a penny from the Saudi government," he told Reuters.

Saudi Arabia's alleged financing of Sunni militant groups has been a sore point in Washington. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned in a December 2009 classified diplomatic cable that charities and donors in Saudi Arabia were the "most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide." In the cable, released by Wikileaks, Clinton said it was "an ongoing challenge" to persuade Saudi officials to treat such activity as a strategic priority. She said the groups funded included al-Qaida, the Taliban and Lashkar-e-Taiba.

The Saudi embassy in Islamabad and officials in Saudi Arabia were unavailable for comment.

Shiite revenge
Some Shia groups do look to Iran's clerical establishment for spiritual leadership, but insist they have no aims beyond protecting members from Sunni attacks.

In the offices of a Shiite organization in Karachi, images of the late Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini are featured on a wall clock. There, a Pakistani Shiite woman named Shafqat Batool described what happened to her son, a judge, when he left for work on August 30.

Minutes after Sayid Zulfiqar stepped out of the family home in Quetta, she said, witnesses told the family three men on a motorcycle opened fire with Kalashnikov rifles. One of the assailants then grabbed a weapon from Zulfiqar's bleeding driver and pumped more bullets into her son.

It prompted Zulfiqar's family to move to Karachi. "We are not safe anywhere in the country," his mother said. "People are horrified, people can't sleep."

The fear is palpable in Quetta, the mountainous provincial capital of southwestern Baluchistan. LeJ has unleashed an escalating campaign there of suicide bombings and assassinations against ethnic Hazaras - Persian-speaking Shiites who mostly emigrated from Afghanistan and are a small minority of the Shiite population in Pakistan.

At least 100 Hazaras have been killed this year, according to Human Rights Watch, leaving some 500,000 Hazaras fearful of venturing out of their enclaves.

"We are under siege; we can't move anywhere," said Khaliq Hazara, chairman of the Hazara Democratic Party. "Hazaras are being killed and there is nobody to take any action.

In Quetta and Karachi, Shiite leaders say they are urging young men to exercise restraint and buy weapons only for self-defense.

"We are controlling our youth and stopping them from reacting," said Syed Sadiq Raza Taqvi, a Karachi cleric, seated beside a calendar with images of Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

But with each killing, the temptation to take revenge grows.

Shiite extremists have not adopted the kind of attacks favored by LeJ. But they have hunted down members of the SSP.

One such case was an attack survived by Sohaib Nadeem, 27, son of an SSP member. Men he described as "Shiite terrorists backed by Iran" opened fire on the Nadeem family in their car. Nadeem survived nine gunshot wounds but his father and brothers were killed. "The Shiites are our enemies," Nadeem said.

Confederation of militants
When the Taliban and al-Qaida want to reach targets outside their strongholds on the Afghan border, they turn to LeJ to provide intelligence, safe houses or young volunteers eager for martyrdom, police and intelligence officials said.

"Lashkar-e-Jhangvi is the detonator of terrorism in Pakistan," said Karachi Police Superintendent Raja Umer Khattab, who has interrogated more than 100 members. "The Taliban needs Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. Al Qaeda needs Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. They are involved in most terrorism cases."

The massacre of Shiite bus passengers outside Gilgit has had a profound impact on this mountaineering hub in the Himalayan foothills. Never before had Sunni extremists asked for identification to single out Shiites and then kill them on such a large scale.

Sunnis and Shiites, who had lived in harmony for decades, now cope with sectarian no-go zones.

"Sunnis can't go to some areas and Shiites can't go to others," lamented Gilgit shopkeeper Muneer Hussain Shah, a Shiite whose brother was killed in a grenade attack.

When violence erupts, text messages circulate rallying one sect or the other. Shops and schools close. Authorities have banned motorcycles to stop drive-by shootings.

Law enforcement itself is a victim of sectarianism in Gilgit, said police chief Usman Zakria. Shi'ite officers are reluctant to investigate crimes committed by Shi'ites, and the same is true of Sunnis.

"They are in disarray," said Zakria. "None of this has happened before."

Additional reporting by Imtiaz Shah in Karachi, Mehreen Zahra-Malik in Islamabad and Matthew Green in Quetta. 

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Senior al-Qaida leader Abu Yahya al-Libi, who was reportedly killed in a U.S. drone strike last week in Pakistan, appeared in a video published Tuesday by the terrorist group’s propaganda wing. 

NBC News terrorism analyst Evan Kohlmann, whose company Flashpoint Global Partners spotted the video titled  "The Tragedy of Syria: Between the Crimes of the Nusayris and the Scheming of the West," said the video made no reference to the reported drone strike early on June 4, and was very likely recorded prior to the attack.

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Though al-Qaida’s As-Sahab propaganda wing and jihadist Web forums hosting the video continue to describe al-Libi with honorific titles suggesting he is  alive, the video itself did not indicate whether he was living or dead.

According to a Reuters translation of the video, al-Libi called on Islamist fighters outside Syria to join rebels in their fight against President Bashar al-Assad.

"We call on our brothers in Iraq, Jordan and Turkey to go to help their brothers,'' he said. "If your revolution was to be peaceful, God would have chosen it that way, but now the illusion of peaceful means after these great sacrifices ... would show weakness."

White House spokesman Jay Carney said a week ago that al-Libi had been killed in North Waziristan, part of Pakistan’s northwest tribal area, but did not confirm that he died in a U.S. drone attack – a sensitive matter with Pakistani officials. 

 “I can’t get into details about how his death was brought about, but I can tell you that he served as al-Qaida’s general manger, responsible for overseeing the group’s day-to-day operations in the tribal areas of Pakistan and he managed the outreach to al-Qaida’s regional affiliates,” Carney said.

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 Previously, Pakistani security sources said al-Libi had died in  a pre-dawn attack on June 4, the last in a series of three U.S. drone attacks over the weekend. 

If al-Libi’s death is confirmed, he would be the fifth senior al-Qaida leader killed since U.S. Navy SEALs killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden on May1, 2011, in a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

Reuters contributed to this report.

 

 

The White House on Tuesday confirmed the death of deputy al-Qaida leader Abu Yahya al-Libi in Pakistan, calling his death a “major blow” to the terrorist group.

White House spokesman Jay Carney would not confirm al-Libi’s death occurred as a result of a U.S. drone strike in North Waziristan, part of  Pakistan’s northwestern tribal area, though Pakistani security sources said he died in  a pre-dawn attack there that killed 15 insurgents, the last in a series of three U.S. drone attacks over the weekend.

---

“I can’t get into details about how his death was brought about, but I can tell you that he served as al-Qaida’s general manger, responsible for overseeing the group’s day-to-day operations in the tribal areas of Pakistan and he managed the outreach to al-Qaida’s regional affiliates,” Carney said.

“We believe al-Libi’s death is a major blow to core al-Qaida, removing the No. 2 leader for the second time in last than a year and further damaging the group’s morale and cohesion and bringing it closer to its ultimate demise than ever before.”

While al-Libi had previously been reported killed in 2009, an Internet post on a jihadist website on Tuesday suggested that he did  not escape death this time.

A senior moderator on Al-Qaida's top-ranked, password-protected Shamukh web forum early in the day urged other users to "pray for our brothers in Waziristan, as the situation does not please the believers." 

"One of the beloved brothers from the mujahideen in Waziristan corresponded privately with me and asked me to open a thread in which we can ask for prayers for our mujahideen brothers,” the author wrote. “The situation is bad there ... and he told me some news and asked me not to reveal it to anyone now.”

The post was quickly removed from the forum a short time later.

Al-Libi, or "the Libyan" in Arabic, believed to be 39 years old, was one of the most influential propagandists in al-Qaida and one of its best known leaders. U.S. officials, speaking with NBC News on condition of anonymity, characterized him as irreplaceable in his expertise, ability and influence.

Al-Libi drew much of his credibility from having escaped a U.S. military prison at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan on the night of July 10, 2005. He subsequently appeared in more than 30 videos produced by al Shahab, the al-Qaida media wing, and other militant sites. In December 2009, Pakistani officials erroneously reported he had been killed in a Predator strike, further enhancing his image.

U.S. officials say unlike many al-Qaida propagandists, he also was a seasoned fighter.

In May 2011, shortly after bin Laden was killed, U.S. officials identified Abu Yahya as one of five potential successors to the slain al-Qaida leaders.  The leading candidate, Ayman al Zawahiri, ultimately did succeed bin Laden.  The other four potential successors now have all been killed in drone strikes.

Ilyas Kashmiri, al-Qaida’s director of external operations, was killed on June 3. Abdul Rahman Atiya, bin Laden’s chief of staff, was killed Aug. 22. Both of those attacks took place in northwestern Pakistan. Anwar al Awlaki, a leader of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula and an American citizen, was killed in Yemen, also in a drone strike, on Sept. 30.

With the leadership of the core al-Qaida group in Pakistan now decimated, U.S. officials have increasingly used drone attacks against the Yemen-based al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, and master bomb-maker, Ibrahim al-Nasiri. 

The U.S. also is openly helping the new Yemeni government in counterinsurgency efforts against an AQAP-affiliated group, Ansar al-Sharia, in the south of the country. The assistance includes “a small contingent” of military trainers and intelligence officers assisting the Yemeni forces.

Jim Miklaszewski is chief Pentagon correspondent for NBC News; Robert Windrem is a senior investigative producer. Shawna Thomas, an NBC News producer at the White House, and Evan Kohlmann, an NBC News terrorism analyst, also contributed to this report.

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A Predator attack over the weekend targeted Abu Yahya al-Libi, a leading al-Qaida operative who was viewed as one of five candidates to succeed Osama bin Laden as leader of the terrorist group when he was killed last year. U.S. officials confirm that he was the target of the Sunday attacks and say they are awaiting word on his status.

In one of three strikes over the weekend, a U.S. drone struck a militant compound early Monday morning in North Waziristan, part of  Pakistan’s northwestern tribal area. Pakistan security reports indicated the pre-dawn strike killed 15 insurgents, with a total of nearly 30 killed in total.

But. a U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Wednesday that the reports on the number of dead were “exaggerated,” and described the death toll as “less than a handful."

---

The Agence France Presse news agency reported that in the attack that targeted Abuy Yahya, two missiles were fired on the compound in Mir Ali, 15 miles east of Miramshah, the capital of North Waziristan, near the Afghan border, in an area considered a hive of Taliban and al-Qaida activity.

A Pakistani official,  who spoke with NBC News on condition of anonymity, said the victims were mostly foreigners and Urdu-speaking Punjabi Taliban who had gathered with the intention of crossing into Afghanistan to fight with Afghan Taliban fighters against NATO forces.

Reuters, citing reports from the region, said nearly 30 people were killed during the sequence of strikes, including four suspected militants on Saturday, 10 suspected militants on Sunday, and 15 people in the strike in which Abu Yahya was targeted. Those numbers were challenged by U.S. officials.

Pakistan's Foreign Ministry said Monday it "strongly condemns" the US drone strikes, which it described as "illegal attacks" on Pakistani sovereignty.

The most-recent attack of the weekend was the eighth drone strike in Pakistan since a NATO conference on Afghanistan in Chicago last month. Since taking office in 2009, the Obama administration has carried out nearly 300 drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, the majority of them in Pakistan’s tribal areas, according to the New America Foundation, which keeps an unofficial count.

If Abu Yahya was indeed killed, it would be another blow to al-Qaida in Pakistan, the so-called al-Qaida Central.  The Libyan, believed to be 39 years old, is one of the most influential propagandists in al-Qaida and one of its best known leaders.

Abu Yahya draws much of his credibility from having escaped a U.S. military prison at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan on the night of July 10, 2005. He subsequently appeared in more than 30 videos produced by al Shahab, the al-Qaida media wing, and other militant sites. In December 2009, Pakistani officials erroneously reported he had been killed in a Predator strike, further enhancing his image.

U.S. officials say unlike many al-Qaida propagandists, Abu Yahya also is a seasoned fighter.

In May 2011, shortly after bin Laden was killed, U.S. officials identified Abu Yahya as one of five potential successors to the slain al-Qaida leaders.  The leading candidate, Ayman al Zawahiri, ultimately did succeed bin Laden.  If Abu Yahya was killed, he would be the fourth of the five to have been killed in drone strikes.

Ilyas Kashmiri, al-Qaida’s director of external operations, was killed on June 3. Abdul Rahman Atiya, bin Laden’s chief of staff, was killed Aug. 22. Both of those attacks took place in northwestern Pakistan.  Anwar al Awlaki, a leader of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula and an American citizen, was killed in Yemen, also in a drone strike, on Sept. 30. 

Robert Windrem is a senior investigative producer for NBC News; NBC News' Mushtaq Yusufzai contributed reporting from Pakistan.

 

PESHAWAR, Pakistan – The brother of the Pakistani doctor imprisoned for helping the CIA to track Osama bin Laden says the family needs protection, and the U.S. government should provide it. 

Jamil Afridi, elder brother to Dr. Shakil Afridi, spoke to NBC News on Monday in Peshawar, after he and his lawyers addressed a group of journalists about his brother's case. 

Pakistan jails doctor who helped CIA track down bin Laden

"My appeal to the U.S. government is that they give Dr. Shakil protection, and give us – his brothers and sisters – protection as well," said Afridi. "We have no protection here."

Dr. Shakil Afridi was arrested in the weeks after the May 2011 U.S. raid on the bin Laden compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The doctor ran a fake vaccination campaign for U.S. intelligence as part of an attempt to get inside the compound and confirm Bin Laden's location. Though those plans failed, U.S. officials have said Dr. Afridi's efforts did help lead them to bin Laden. 

---

Dr. Afridi was tried under a legal system known as the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR), which applies only in Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal areas. Trials are conducted by a local government official in consultation with tribal elders, and the accused are not allowed legal representation. Dr. Afridi was convicted on treason charges and sentenced to 33 years in prison. 

His brother dismissed the charges against Dr. Afridi as "false," saying he did nothing against Pakistan's national interest, and that "anything" could happen to him or his family now. 

'Schizophrenic ally': US to ax $33 million in Pakistan aid?

"For one whole year, we had no idea where he was – whether he was alive or dead," said Afridi. "Now they say he's in Central Jail, Peshawar, but we're not allowed to see him."

Dr. Afridi's conviction further complicated already tense relations between the U.S. and Pakistan. U.S. officials demanded his release, claiming his efforts helped to capture an enemy to both Pakistan and the U.S. But Pakistani officials have called Dr. Afridi's decision to work for a foreign intelligence agency a "serious offense." 

U.S. officials say they expect to continue the conversation about Dr. Afridi with their Pakistani counterparts, but the list of unresolved issues between the two countries continues to grow.

Both sides are negotiating the re-opening of the overland NATO supply routes that run through Pakistan – shuttered since last November – and the Pakistan government also is calling  for a complete halt on all U.S. drone strikes within the country. In the last week alone, there have been four strikes carried out in the border region with Afghanistan. 

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In letters from his hideout in Pakistan written in the five years before his death, Osama bin Laden fretted about dysfunction among the far-flung affiliate organizations in his terrorist network, according to documents seized during the U.S. military’s raid on his compound that that were released on Thursday. 

Seventeen declassified letters seized in last year's raid on bin Laden's compound by U.S. Navy SEALs were posted online Thursday by the U.S. Army's Combating Terrorism Center, accompanying its analysis of their contents titled, "Letters from Abbottabad: Bin Ladin Sidelined?" The letters -- 175 pages in Arabic -- probably represent only a small fraction of materials taken from the compound, the center’s distinguished chair, retired Gen. John Abizaid, said in a note published with the translations.

---

U.S. intelligence analysts have spent countless hours poring over the vast stash of computerized and paper data seized during the raid that killed bin Laden, as NBC News’ Jim Miklaszewski and Robert Windrem reported earlier this week.

But the letters released Thursday, which were written between September 2006 and April 2011, add new nuances to the previous reports. 

Among other things, they show the al-Qaida founder was troubled by the actions of other Islamist groups that aligned themselves with his terrorist network.

As Associated Press reporter Kimberly Dozier puts it:

The documents show dark days for al-Qaida and its hunkered-down leader after years of attacks by the United States and what bin Laden saw as bumbling within his own organization and its terrorist allies.

The so-called affiliate organizations – including al-Qaida in Iraq, al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula; the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (Student Movement of Pakistan); and the Somalia-based Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen – were of particular concern to bin Laden. 

In the words of the report’s authors: 

Rather than a source of strength, bin Ladin was burdened by what he viewed as the incompetence of the “affiliates,” including their lack of political acumen to win public support, their media campaigns and their poorly planned operations which resulted in the unnecessary deaths of thousands of Muslims. 

"I plan to release a statement that we are starting a new phase to correct (the mistakes) we made," bin Laden wrote in 2010. "In doing so, we shall reclaim, God willing, the trust of a large segment of those who lost their trust in the jihadis."

Nothing in the papers points directly to al-Qaida sympathizers in Pakistan's government. Bin Laden described "trusted Pakistani brothers" but didn't identify any Pakistani government or military officials who might have been aware of or complicit in his hiding in Abbottabad. 

Watch World News videos on msnbc.com

The letters also indicate that American Adam Gadahn played a much greater role in al-Qaida than has been acknowledged by U.S. authorities, who have often dismissed him as a propagandist and spokesman. In fact, Gadahn appeared to act as an adviser to bin Laden and in one letter urged that al-Qaida disassociate itself from al-Qaida in Iraq. 

One letter also outlined Gadahn’s views of U.S. news organizations as part of a discussion of how al-Qaida might go about publicizing the 10^th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks on the U.S.

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He indicated a particular dislike of Fox News, writing, “Let her die in her anger”; said MSNBC-TV appeared to be “good and neutral a bit,” while complaining about the firing of Keith Olbermann; said CNN appeared to be aligned with the U.S. government but was better in its Arabic reports; and made flattering comments about CBS and ABC.

NBC News senior investigative producer Robert Windrem contributed to this report.

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White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan on Monday spoke openly -- and at great length -- about what has long been one of the government’s most controversial official secrets:  the use of remotely piloted drones to kill suspected terrorists.

In doing so, he became the first U.S. government official to acknowledge that the drone strikes sometimes kill innocent people, though he characterized such deaths as  “exceedingly rare.” But a new analysis by an independent Washington think tank estimates that more than 300 civilians have been killed by drones since President Barack Obama took office.

In a major speech on the anniversary of Osama bin Laden’s death during a raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan, by U.S. Navy SEALs, Brennan proclaimed that al-Qaida is now "on the path to its destruction."  But the headline was what he had to say about the drone program — long a forbidden subject for senior U.S. officials  — and how the U.S. government uses it.

---

“The United States conducts targeted strikes against specific al-Qaida terrorists, sometimes using remotely piloted aircraft, often referred to publicly as drones,” said Brennan, in his speech at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, a Washington, D.C., foreign policy think tank.  

While it has been openly reported in the press for years, the use by the CIA of pilotless drones to kill members of al-Qaida has long been officially classified,  prompting government officials to talk obliquely about “lethal operations” and “removal” of terrorists. They have done so even as Obama has dramatically escalated the number of such attacks and made them the central component of the administration’s counterterrorism efforts.

One U.S. intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told NBC News that the speech represents “a pretty big sea change for us” in terms of what officials will now be permitted to talk about. But the official said that while Brennan’s speech had been carefully vetted throughout the U.S. intelligence and national security community, there had been no formal declassification of the drone program. “The president can declassify anything he wants,” said the official, adding that Brennan – as the representative of the president — can speak about anything his boss wants him to discuss.   

Under Obama, there have been an estimated 250 drone strikes in northwest Pakistan that have killed as many as 2,345 people, according to an analysis by the New America Foundation, a Washington think tank that closely tracks the program. Such strikes have generated a storm of protest in Pakistan and stepped up demands by the Pakistani government to halt them.   

In what he described as an effort to be more open with the American people, Brennan on Monday described an elaborate process under which senior government officials select targets for drone strikes. They must first determine whether a prospective target is a bona fide member of al-Qaida or “associated forces” and poses a “significant threat” to U.S. interests.  The “lethal action” strikes are not used for “punishing terrorists for past crimes” or “seeking vengeance.” Instead, they are used to “stop plots” and “prevent future attacks,” citing as one example, targeting individuals  who possess “unique operational skills.”

Read more reporting by Michael Isikoff in 'The Isikoff Files'

Brennan  said the use of drones gives U.S. intelligence agencies the ability to use “laser-like” precision against the terrorists. But he acknowledged that "innocent civilians have been killed in these strikes." He said such instances have been "exceedingly rare, but it has happened.

“When it does, it pains us and we regret it deeply, as we do any time innocents are killed in war," he added. 

That passage of his speech alone was significant. In June 2011, Brennan said that in the previous year of operations in the government’s then-unspecified program to eliminate al-Qaida members, “There hasn’t been a single collateral death because of the exceptional proficiency, precision of the capabilities we’ve been able to develop.”   

Brennan later changed that statement in response to questions by the New York Times, spurred in part by  reports about a May 6 strike in Pakistan that  hit a religious school, an adjourning restaurant and a house, killing 18 people. Although 12 militants were allegedly killed, British and Pakistani journalists on the scene reported that six civilians also died in the strike.

In Brennan’s adjusted statement last year, he said, “Fortunately, for more than a year, due to our discretion and precision, the U.S. government has not found credible evidence of collateral deaths resulting from U.S. counterterrorism operations outside of Afghanistan or Iraq.”

Brennan did not give any details on Monday about how rare civilian deaths have been. But according to the analysis by the New America Foundation, which relies heavily on local media and other reports from observers in Pakistan, about 17 percent of those who have been killed by drones since the program effectively began in 2004 were “non-militants.”  The foundation estimated that the  “non-military fatality rate” has since dropped to about 13 percent under Obama – as drone strikes have become more frequent and more precise.

Those numbers translate to 471 civilian deaths, including 309 under Obama.

Human rights groups — who have challenged the administration to be more open about its drone program — were not satisfied with the new details provided by Brennan’s speech.

“It is not enough that care is taken to avoid harm to innocent civilians,” said Raha Wala, an official with Human Rights First. “Brennan's assertion that any 'member' of al-Qaida or 'associated forces' is legally targetable is wrong. Under the laws of armed conflict, only members of the enemy's armed forces, or those directly participating in hostilities or who perform a continuous combat function, may be targeted.”

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ABBOTTABAD, Pakistan -- A year after Osama bin Laden was found and killed in Pakistan, one key question has yet to be answered: how did the world's most wanted man manage to move and live, undetected, in this country for so long?

Journalists, analysts, and others have been working to fill in the narrative holes over the last 12 months. Leaked and strategically released nuggets of information have helped to paint a vague picture of what life was like inside the Abbottabad compound where bin Laden spent his final years, living with three of his wives, and several children and grandchildren. We've learned of the austere conditions inside the home, the restricted lifestyle led by all inside, and the discipline with which the head of al-Qaida communicated with a trusted few. But the crucial questions -- how he got to that compound in the first place and who helped him to do so -- remain unanswered.

Kamran Bokhari, vice-president for Middle Eastern and South Asian Affairs at Stratfor, a global intelligence company, believes the idea that bin Laden moved around without a network of individuals organizing his transportation and logistics is simply not possible.

"If you're a six-foot-five Arab, and the most wanted man on the planet, you can't just walk into a place like Pakistan without support," Bokhari said. "So what's the nature of that support?"

---

U.S. officials publicly state they have no evidence that any Pakistani institutional leaders had any knowledge of bin Laden's presence here, nor played any role in helping to move him. Privately, however, some admit that the deep mistrust between the two nations has led to strong, lingering suspicions within many in the U.S. that Pakistan's premier intelligence agency -- Inter-Services Intelligence, or the ISI -- must have known, at some level.

"There are deep suspicions on both sides," says retired General Mahmud Ali Durrani, a former national security advisor and ambassador to the United States. "I think the biggest concern in the U.S., if I put it in a phrase, is that Pakistan is hunting with the hounds and running with the hares. That is the perception."

Panetta recalls nail-biting moments of bin Laden raid

That perception has not been helped by what seem to be Pakistan's action priorities over the last year. The prevailing public dialogue among military and government officials in the immediate raid aftermath focused on how the U.S. had managed to breach Pakistan's borders, not how bin Laden had. The Pakistani doctor who ran a fake vaccination program in Abbottabad for the CIA in an effort to secure DNA samples from inside the bin Laden compound was swiftly tracked down, arrested, and remains in detention, possibly to stand trial for treason. Authorities quietly began work after dark to demolish the compound in February, keeping press behind a security cordon half a mile away, and after a year in custody, the widows and their families were shuttled out of their house in the dead of night and deported to Saudi Arabia.

Pakistan did immediately launch a formal commission with wide-reaching powers soon after the raid, pledging to investigate both the U.S. border breach and bin Laden's presence here. The Abbottabad Commission, as it's come to be known here, has enjoyed unparalleled access to anyone and everyone associated directly or peripherally with either issue, interviewing over 100 witnesses over the last year, including bin Laden's widows, the detained doctor who worked for the CIA, and high-level Pakistani officials.  But there is no working deadline and expectations vary as to how blunt and definitive an account commission members will be able to put forth.

"Given how previous commissions in Pakistan have behaved, I'm not really hopeful that much will come out of this," Bokhari said. "This is not like the 9/11 Commission or anything similar elsewhere in other countries where there's a process and transparency and rule of law."

'Embarrassment'
Durrani, who's been in touch with members of the commission, says the length of time it's taken for them to compile findings speaks to their determination to fulfill their mandate to the best of their ability.

"If the report comes out tomorrow and it's a whitewash, then people will ask -- what have you done?" Durrani said. "They [the commission members] are keen to get to the bottom of this, to find out what happened, why it happened, who's at fault, and what needs to be done so we don't have such embarrassment and such issues in the future."

Driving the investigators' query is a widely-held belief here in Pakistan that bin Laden was never here at all -- that the entire raid was an effort by the U.S. to defame and destabilize Pakistan's security establishment. Residents of Abbottabad with whom NBC News spoke reiterated that skepticism, saying they don't believe the U.S. claim that bin Laden was living in their midst, particularly in the absence of any evidence of his death.

Low expectations
Commission members have been reluctant to speak with the media until their findings are complete, but the head of the commission, retired Supreme Court Judge Javed Iqbal, confirmed to NBC News that one of the key issues his team is investigating is whether bin Laden was ever really here at all.

PhotoBlog: Abbottabad -- One year after Osama bin Laden raid

Despite low expectations for the pending report, Bokhari admits the commission is tasked with an enormously difficult job, one that will have repercussions for generations to come in the form of Pakistan's official narrative of this historic event.

"This is the biggest event in recent history since the fall of the Soviet Union -- 9/11 and its impact, the killing of Osama bin Laden -- so I'm not surprised it's taken them this long to come up with a report," Bokhari said. "It may take decades before anybody can actually come up with a comprehensive view of what was really happening."

 

The few specifics that have emerged from Pakistan in the last year in effect lead to more questions officials here must attempt to answer, through the commission or otherwise.

The U.S. moved quickly on the message-control front after the Abbottabad raid, releasing selective video clips and pieces of information from the "treasure trove" of evidence seized from bin Laden's compound. An NBC News team was given an exclusive briefing by a senior U.S. counterterrorism official on currently classified intelligence from the raid, including details of the role bin Laden played in al-Qaida from his hideout in Pakistan, who he was in touch with, and more on the life he lived within that compound. Those details will air on Discovery Channel on Tuesday as part of a one-hour special on the anniversary of the U.S. raid.

But the details from within Pakistan have been few and far between. A rare piece of evidence -- a confidential interrogation report of bin Laden's youngest wife, Amal, obtained by NBC News -- did reveal some surprising details about the family's life on the run after the attacks of September 11.

According to the report, Amal told investigators that the family scattered after 9/11, bouncing from house to house and place to place in Pakistan. In her complicated timeline, she moved across multiple residences in the southern mega-city of Karachi, then moved on to Peshawar to link up with her husband. From there, the family moved to Swat, then to Haripur, and finally settled in the Abbottabad home for about six years until the U.S. raid that killed her husband.

"These people are fanatics. They're ideological but keep in mind that they are also very professional at what they do," Bokhari explained. "They're in a business where if you make a small error in judgment it can easily translate to death for many people. There are people waiting for you to make a mistake. You have to be highly disciplined."

Co-conspirators?
But the pace of movement believed to have been followed by bin Laden and his family -- traversing entire provinces in Pakistan, and including rural, tribal, settled, and urban areas while remaining completely undetected -- would be difficult without some sort of network of support. Current and former Pakistani officials and analysts have offered up the possibility of "rogue or retired" elements from within Pakistan's military or intelligence establishment as possible facilitators or co-conspirators helping to hide bin Laden.

The nature of Pakistan's retired uniformed corps, many of whom stay involved with the work of the agencies long after they leave as the new leadership continues to make use of their experience and contacts, albeit in unofficial capacities and with limited authority. As the largest employer in Pakistan, it follows that the Pakistan army also has the largest pool of retirees, some of whom spent significant time working closely with and gaining the trust of jihadi groups in the 1980s and 1990s.

"If it's a retired network of people, what I call the 'Pakistani Blackwater,' that's not that bad. It's bad, but not that bad," Bokhari said. "But if it's someone who's serving, or more than one person, then [Pakistan's leaders] have a leak in [their] system and that's terrifying. Anyone who's a very nationalistic, Pakistani leader who doesn't want al-Qaida or the CIA to be able to get into their house will want to get to the bottom of that."

Bin Laden's widow's condition worsens, brother says

As potentially worrying or damaging as some of the information in the commission's report may be for Pakistan's institutions, it is also widely believed that the organizations cannot survive without taking a hard look at their own potential faults, and admitting mistakes where they did occur. The military and intelligence establishments were already raked over the coals by the government and media after last year's raid in Abbottabad, and are now under the highest level of scrutiny in the country's history.

A failure, at this point, to produce a credible, official version of events will only damage Pakistan, according to Durrani.

"Pakistan wants to move forwards not backwards. They have to get to the bottom of this, in their own interest," he says. "If they don't, it will be another major issue buried in the sands of history. And people will forever be looking for answers."

NBC's Fakhar Rehman contributed to this report from Abbottabad.

By Robert Windrem
NBC News

With the successful Predator attack on al-Qaida operative Aslam Awan inside Pakistan, al-Qaida has lost, in the words of a senior U.S. official last night, "a senior external operations planner who was working on attacks against the West. His death reduces al-Qaida's thinning bench of another operative devoted to plotting the death of innocent civilians."

Awan is believed to have been somewhat close to Ayman al Zawahiri, the leader of al-Qaida since shortly after Osama Bbn Laden's death on May 1. Although U.S. officials would not place a number on Awan's rank within al-Qaida, he was believed to have been involved in planning attacks, putting him in the high command.

But what of Zawahiri? The U.S. pursuit of him remains a high priority. (And his killing or capture would be regarded as a political coup for the Obama administration in a campaign year.) The U.S. has targeted Zawahiri five times by his own count, going back to the days after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

---

A U.S. counterterrorism official tells NBC News that there's limited information on the status of U.S. planning against Zawahiri. "It's certainly not impossible" for an attack on Zawahiri to be attempted. "But he has clearly hung very low since May, with fundamentally no communications," said the official.

Evan Kohlmann, MSNBC analyst and counterterrorism consultant, reports that since bin Laden's death, al-Qaida's media arm has released eight recordings of al-Zawahiri, not all of which can be easily dated. At least one and possibly two of them were probably recorded prior to bin Laden being killed, then released after his death. The most recent one came out on December 1. In that video, Zawahiri boasted that al-Qaida had seized aid worker Warren Weinstein, a 70-year-old American, in Lahore last August. There's been no proof of life regarding Weinstein since then.

Those recordings are often hand-carried through a network of couriers to ensure Zawahiri's security.

From the archives: Bin Laden dead: Who will lead al-Qaeda?

Husain Haqqani, Pakistan's ambassador to the U.S., has resigned amid controversy surrounding a memo he allegedly drafted shortly after U.S. forces killed Osama bin Laden in May.

The memo requested U.S. intervention to prevent a military coup and protect the civilian government in exchange for granting the U.S. heavy influence on matters of national security in Pakistan. 

Dubbed “Memogate,” the affair has dominated headlines in Pakistan for weeks before apparently claiming its first victim on Tuesday.

A statement issued by Pakistan's Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani's office said Haqqani has been asked "to submit his resignation so that the investigation can be carried out properly." 

---

Haqqani flew back to Islamabad this weekend to explain his involvement – if any -- in the scandal to President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Gilani and military and intelligence officials, tweeting on Nov.  19th that he was "Heading back to the motherland."  He reportedly offered his resignation then, but it was not accepted at the time. 

"Memogate" is centered on a memo that Pakistani-American businessman Mansoor Ijaz says he delivered to then-chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, at the behest of Ambassador Haqqani in the days immediately following the U.S. raid that killed bin Laden in Pakistan. The memo, which is unsigned, states that there had been “a significant deterioration in Pakistan’s political atmosphere” and indicated that the civilian government feared that factions within the military were planning a coup.

Read the full memo 

Retired U.S. Gen. Jim Jones, President Barack Obama’s former national security adviser, has confirmed that the memo was delivered to Mullen.

The existence of the memo was revealed in an October op-ed by Ijaz for the Financial Times. Ijaz told NBC News he typed the memo as dictated by Haqqani, and only revealed its existence in the article to lend credibility to the policy case he was making. Haqqani has denied any involvement in requesting or drafting the memo. But opposition leaders in Pakistan pounced, equating the memo to "treason" and demanding that heads roll.

Members of the Pakistani press have been digging into the scandal for the last few weeks, including publishing Blackberry messages allegedly exchanged by Haqqani and Ijaz as the memo was being drafted, and afterward.  

U.S. officials tell NBC News they are watching with "great interest" how this is being handled by the Pakistani government, but say they are not involved in the investigation.

Haqqani, who has been described as a "seasoned political operator," is well-liked within U.S. government circles, and enjoys a strong reputation for managing to remain effective in a treacherous political climate. He remains in Islamabad at this writing.

In Tuesday’s statement, Gilani ordered an investigation to be "carried out fairly, objectively and without bias."

“As a result of controversy generated by  the alleged memo, which had been drafted, formulated and further  admitted to have been received by Authority in USA, it has become  necessary in the national interest to formally arrive at the actual and  true facts,” the statement said. 

Haqqani turned back to his Twitter account following the announcement of his resignation, writing, "I have much to contribute to building a new Pakistan free of bigotry & intolerance. Will focus energies on that."

Fakhar Rehman of NBC News contributed to this report from Islamabad.