In a shocking new revelation, a former CIA official has said that Osama bin Laden, the architect of the 9/11 terror strikes, had escaped Afghanistan by posing as a woman to escape from US troops in Afghanistan’s Tora Bora mountains.
John Kiriakou, a former 15-year CIA veteran and head of counterterrorism operations in Pakistan, explained the reported escape and a serious intelligence failure in an exclusive interview with news agency ANI.
Infiltrator Translator Foiled Tora Bora Capture
Kiriakou said US troops felt they had bin Laden and al-Qaeda command trapped at Tora Bora following the 9/11 attacks. But their position was undermined by an internal leak.
“We didn’t know that the translator for the commander of Central Command was really an Al Qaeda operative who had infiltrated into the US military,” Kiriakou said.
#WATCH | On the escape of Osama Bin Laden, Former CIA Officer in charge of counter-terror operations in Pakistan and a Whistleblower of the CIA’s Torture Program, John Kiriakou says, “… Bin Laden dressed as a woman and escaped under the cover of darkness in the back of a pickup… pic.twitter.com/aN3OHWjBND
— ANI (@ANI) October 24, 2025
As told by Kiriakou, when American troops demanded the surrender of bin Laden, the leader of al-Qaeda employed the translator that had infiltrated to stall for time. Bin Laden asked for a temporary postponement until dawn to “evacuate the women and children,” which was granted by the translator to the commanding General Franks.
US soldiers found at dawn that they had been tricked, and the Tora Bora caves were vacant.
Bin Laden Escaped In A Pickup Truck
Kiriakou then explained how bin Laden had escaped from the surrounded mountain range into Pakistan.
“What actually occurred was that bin Laden himself dressed up as a woman, and he escaped at night in the bed of a pickup truck into Pakistan,” Kiriakou continued.
Bin Laden stayed in hiding over the border in Pakistan for almost a decade before he was assassinated in a US Navy SEAL operation in Abbottabad in May 2011.
CIA Bought In With President Musharraf
Kiriakou also revealed the dynamics of the relationship between the Pakistani government during then-President Pervez Musharraf and US intelligence.
Reacting to a question on the close relationship between the two spy agencies, the retired CIA official alleged that the US practically bribed the Pakistani leader.
“Let’s be honest here. The United States loves doing business with dictators. And so we basically just bought Musharraf,” he asserted.
Kiriakou disclosed that America gave “millions and millions and millions of dollars in assistance, whether it was military assistance or economic development assistance.” The assistance guaranteed that Musharraf “would allow us to do whatever we wanted to do.”
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Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: ZEE News
