Osama bin Laden killing: Pakistan officials 'out' spy who gave away al-Qaeda leader's location

Report from Pakistan that Brigadier Usman Khalid went to the US seeking a $25m reward adds credence to Seymour Hersh exposé

Osama bin Laden, the founder and leader of al-Qaeda, was killed by US commandos in May 2011 (Getty Images)

Pakistani military officials have reportedly named the spy who, it is claimed, gave away the location of Osama bin Laden to the US.

The White House has consistently maintained that it found the al-Qaeda leader and carried out a secret mission to kill him in 2011 without the knowledge or assistance of the government of Pakistan.

But an article by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh alleged this week that that was part of an elaborate lie fed to the public by President Barack Obama in order to score political points.

Hersh claims in the article that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency was in fact keeping bin Laden a prisoner as “leverage against al-Qaeda and the Taliban”, and was persuaded to assist in the American operation as long as he was killed and their participation kept a secret.

Locals and media gather outside the compound, pictured in May 2011, where Osama Bin Laden was reportedly killed in an operation by US Navy Seals (Getty images)

The allegations largely come from a single source, identified by Hersh only as “a retired senior US intelligence official”, who said the CIA was first told bin Laden’s location by a senior Pakistani spy seeking a slice of a $25 million reward.

According to Hersh, the informant claimed to be Khalid and his family “were smuggled out of Pakistan and relocated in the Washington area… he is now a consultant for the CIA”.

On that point, at least, Hersh's account may fall down - according to South Asian Pulse, Brigadier Usman Khalid died in London on the morning of 2 April, 2014.

On Monday, White House officials strongly denied Hersh’s article as “riddled with inaccuracies and outright falsehoods”.

And while the US administration is yet to comment on the new claims about the alleged informant coming out of Pakistan, National Security Council spokesman Ned Price has said that the whole story contains “too many inaccuracies and baseless assertions to fact check each one”.