Osama bin Laden escaped disguised as a woman, reveals former CIA chief in Pakistan

NEW DELHI: Revelation that Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, who was being hunted by US forces after the World Trade Centre attack, escaped from the Tora Bora mountains disguised as a woman. The revelation was made by John Kiriakou, the head of the CIA's counterterrorism division in Pakistan. Kiriakou worked as part of the CIA for 15 years.

'We did not know that the translator for the commander of Central Command was actually an al-Qaeda operative who had infiltrated the US military. And so we knew we had bin Laden cornered. We told him to come down the mountain. And 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. The translator convinced General Franks to approve this idea. 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 revealed.

There was no trace of bin Laden for years. The US military discovered bin Laden's hideout in Abbottabad, a city in northern Pakistan, in May 2011. The military confirmed that it was bin Laden after continuous surveillance. The US later killed bin Laden in a commando operation.