Bin Laden had routine contact with ISI officers: secret files

Osama bin Laden was in routine contact with several senior figures from Pakistan’s military intelligence agency while in hiding in the country, according to a large cache of secret intelligence files.

The disclosure was contained in e-mails from the private U.S. security company, Stratfor, which were published by Wikileaks website Monday after being obtained by the Anonymous hacking group.

Stratfor provides analysis of world affairs to corporations, military officials and government agencies and was once likened by a U.S. business magazine to a “shadow CIA.”

According to an e-mail, the company was shown the information papers collected from bin Laden’s Abbottabad compound after the U.S. special forces attack last May that resulted in his death. The e-mail, from a Stratfor analyst, suggested that up to 12 officials in Pakistan’s Inter-services Intelligence (ISI) agency knew of the al-qaeda leader’s safe house.

The e-mail did not name the Pakistani officials involved but said the U.S. could use the information as a bargaining chip in negotiations with Islamabad after the raid.

U.S. officials have always believed it was impossible for the ISI not to have known that Bin Laden was sheltering in a garrison town so close to Islamabad. Pakistan has repeatedly dismissed the charge.

Wikileaks claimed to have five million Stratfor e-mails that it would publish in collaboration with media outlets. Only 200 were released in the first lot.

Other revelations from the e-mails included the suggestion that Hugo Chavez, Venezuela’s president, may have less than a year to live after his cancer spread to the colon and bone marrow.

Julian Assange, the Wikileaks founder, accused Stratfor of involvement in wide range of legally or morally questionable activities.

Stratfor rejected claims that there was anything improper in the way it handled information gathered. “Stratfor has worked to build good sources in many countries.”