100 Places You Will Never Visit (23 page)

Following the defeat of Napoleon, the 1814 Treaty of Paris granted the island to Britain, which administered it from Mauritius. A resident population of plantation workers expanded over the subsequent centuries, and for a brief period between 1942 and 1946, there was a British Flying Boat Base on the east coast of the island.

Twenty years later, with the US keen to gain a military foothold in the Indian Ocean to expand its Cold War sphere of influence, London and Washington reached an agreement in 1966 that the US could make long-term use of British territory in the region. The deal suited both parties—the British were happy to reduce their military commitments and save money (they also received a US$14 million sweetener discount on their purchase of the Polaris missile system) while the US made strategic gains for relatively little expense or trouble.

Diego Garcia seemed the perfect island, blessed as it is with a large natural harbor as well as enough room for an airstrip. Washington did make one stipulation, however: they wanted an island that was uninhabited—there was to be no trouble with the natives. Alas, on Diego Garcia there was a permanent population of several hundred Chagossians (sometimes also known as Îlois), descended from generations of plantation workers. Some had family roots going back to the 18th century. Under international law, the interests of any permanent population on the island should have been of paramount importance.

To avoid this problem, a legal sleight of hand was used: Diego Garcia’s inhabitants were classified as “transient workers,” robbing them of the usual safeguards, and they were informed by the British that they were residing illegally unless they could produce nonexistent documentation proving their right to remain. The British then began the process of moving them out, some claim forcibly. The plantations were dismantled, and food and medical stocks were run down and not replaced. In 1971, most of the residents were relocated to other islands in the archipelago, or to Mauritius or the Seychelles, where they faced uncertain futures.

The US now had the unpeopled island it desired, and put it to immediate use. By 1977, a naval support facility had been built, port facilities for fleet vessels were developed and a military airbase established, along with state-of-the-art communications and tracking facilities. All of this came at a cost of several billion dollars, and it was clear the Americans were here for the long-run. Secrecy on the island has reigned ever since. It was a key base for American bombers during both the Afghan and Iraqi wars in the early 2000s and, most controversially, was used as a stopping-off point for US rendition flights transferring prisoners to Guantánamo Bay and elsewhere. No journalist has ever received permission to visit the island.

DEADLY PAYLOAD A Northrop Grumman B-2 Spirit drops its missiles during a training mission. Diego Garcia is home to specially designed hangars that house these state-of-the-art stealth bombers. The B-2 Spirit has been active in American military operations since the late 1990s.

Today, there is a resident population of between 3,000 and 5,000 US military personnel and civilian support staff, and Washington is less keen than ever to reduce its presence in the region. Yet, against these vast odds, the Chagossian nation continues to fight for its right to return. Its cause received a huge boost in 2000, when the British High Court ruled that their expulsion had been illegal.

Subsequent rulings by other courts seemed to overturn that decision, but the legal process goes on to this day, with the European Court of Human Rights considering the case. In 2010, a WikiLeaks release of diplomatic cables seemed to suggest that the British government was considering an attempt to have the British Indian Ocean Territory designated as a marine reserve, thus effectively removing the chance of resettlement on environmental grounds. Until a final decision is reached, the island that was once a palm-fringed ocean paradise serves as a secretive military enclave, key to America’s foreign policy strategy.

1 STAR GAZING The island is home to one of America’s three operational facilities for the Ground-Based Electro-Optical Deep Space Surveillance (GEODSS) system. GEODSS is used to track man-made objects as they orbit the Earth up to 32,000 kilometers (20,000 miles) away.

2 WAR AND PEACE US Air Force B-1 Lancer bombers on Diego Garcia’s runway 13, preparing to fly into action over Afghanistan in late 2001. A once quiet backwater in the Indian Ocean has become a key element in the United States’ regional strategy.

79 Osama bin Laden’s compound, Abbottabad

LOCATION Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan

NEAREST POPULATION HUB Islamabad

SECRECY OVERVIEW High-security location: the long-hidden home of Osama bin Laden and, in 2011, scene of his death.

On May 2, 2011, American president Barack Obama announced to the world that US Navy Seals had finally tracked down and killed Osama bin Laden, the world’s most wanted man for the past decade. It would subsequently emerge that bin Laden had spent many of the years since his flight from Afghanistan living apparently unnoticed in a middle-class Pakistani town, just down the road from a military base.

The thriving town of Abbottabad lies in the Orash Valley of northern Pakistan. A popular stop on the tourist trail, it is surrounded on all sides by sweeping hills, and offers a gateway to the Karakoram Highway, following the route of the ancient Silk Road.

This moderate-sized town is named after a British army officer, Major James Abbott, who founded it in 1853. For many years, it has served as home to the Pakistan Military Academy, the training school for the nation’s army officers, and has a prominent population of retired military. All in all, its residents would tell you, Abbottabad is a pleasant and secure place in which to live.

Yet it was here that the man responsible for a number of atrocities, including the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the USA, lived unhindered for at least five years. How that could have been is a mystery yet to be solved, and one that severely strained the bonds of trust between Washington and Islamabad.

Construction on what would become the bin Laden compound is believed to have been completed in 2005, and the owner was allegedly one Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti. Built within less than a mile of the Military Academy, the main building consists of three stories with at least eight bedrooms, and has a footprint of some 3,500 square meters (37,500 sq ft). It is surrounded by a concrete perimeter wall that rises between 4 and 6 meters (13 and 20 ft) in height, and is topped with barbed wire. There are relatively few windows, and the third floor (where bin Laden resided) is surrounded by a 2-meter (6.6-ft) high “privacy wall” of its own. Entry was via heavy security gates and there were numerous surveillance cameras in operation, though no provision existed for internet or telephone connections.

BEHIND CLOSED DOORS This view of the Abbottabad complex shows just how well protected and concealed its inhabitants were. Nonetheless, many in the international intelligence community have cast doubt on bin Laden’s ability to stay so long in hiding without the assistance of powerful figures within Pakistan.

Intelligence sources indicate that bin Laden probably moved to the premises on January 6, 2006. Its official address is House No. 3, Street No. 8-A, Garga Road, Thanda Chowa, Hashmi Colony, Abbottabad. However, it was given the nickname of Waziristan Haveli by locals. Haveli is the local word for a mansion, while Waziristan, ironically, is a region of Pakistan in which many commentators believed bin Laden had been sheltered for years.

Although the building’s structure was somewhat atypical, it did not immediately set alarm bells ringing. The locals noticed that the inhabitants kept themselves to themselves, and the house was not kept in the best state of repair. If local children were playing cricket nearby and batted a ball into the compound, the occupants gave them generous financial recompense for their loss, but the balls were never returned. This, it may be assumed, was as a security precaution. Nor did they ever dispose of their rubbish in the normal way—instead, waste was assiduously burned in an outside area. But all of this could perhaps be put down to eccentricity rather than anything more sinister.

Eventually, American intelligence forces began tracking al-Kuwaiti, whom they had identified as a bin Laden courier. After establishing that he resided in Abbottabad, it became clear that his home there had all the characteristics of a hideaway, and prolonged surveillance led to the conclusion that bin Laden could be the object of its protection. On May 2, 2011, in a raid codenamed Neptune Spear, 24 commandos arrived in Abbottabad from Afghanistan on two Black Hawk helicopters (one of which crashed and had to be abandoned), and took down the outer wall with explosives. They then raided the building within, engaging several other residents of the compound in fire fights before shooting bin Laden dead at around 1 a.m. After confirming his identity, they left with the body, which was later buried at sea.

Today, the compound is under the protection of the Pakistani police force. Sightseers, while allowed to approach the remaining parts of the external wall, are not permitted entry. It is believed that the Pakistani security services intend to destroy the building so that it does not become a shrine for jihadists. But before then it will be minutely scrutinized to discover just how it managed to hide its notorious occupant for so long.

DEMOLITION JOB Two security officials and a group of Abbottabad locals watch the destruction of the now-deserted bin Laden compound in February 2012. Once the site had been picked clean for evidence of Al-Qaeda operations, Pakistani officials were understandably eager to remove all trace of this embarrassing landmark.

80 Line of Control

LOCATION Kashmir, Indian Subcontinent

NEAREST POPULATION HUB Islamabad, Pakistan/ Srinagar, India

SECRECY OVERVIEW Access restricted: UNregulated dividing line between India and Pakistan.

When the British gave up control of India in 1947, the country was divided into two independent states along broadly religious lines: Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan. As a result of the vagaries of politics, Kashmir became the focus of a bitter border dispute that has rumbled on for almost seven decades with little prospect of resolution. In the meantime, the area is a virtual no-go area for outsiders.

With the end of British rule over India in the aftermath of the Second World War, each state within India was given the choice of becoming part of the new India or acceding to Pakistan. With a predominantly Muslim population, it was widely assumed that Jammu and Kashmir would choose the latter option. However, when the state’s Hindu Maharajah, Hari Singh, hesitated, the territory was subject to incursions from Pakistan. The Maharajah appealed to the British for military assistance, which was granted in return for a promise to accede to India. Jammu and Kashmir thus became the only Indian state with a Muslim majority, making a bitter armed struggle all but inevitable.

The United Nations oversaw a ceasefire between the two sides and demanded a plebiscite on the state’s future, but this was never carried out. The stage was set for a prolonged tug-of-war between India and Pakistan, culminating in further all-out military offensives in 1965, 1971 and 1999, with many more minor outbreaks of violence in between.

India has maintained control of southern Kashmir, which it rules as the state of Jammu and Kashmir and which contains two-thirds of the population (about 9 million people). Pakistan, meanwhile, administers the northern part of the territory as the Gilgit-Baltistan and Azad Kashmir provinces, with a combined population of about 3 million. Neither side recognizes the other’s jurisdiction. To complicate matters further, China lays claim to Aksai Chin and the Trans-Karakoram Tract in the northeast of the region. India and China clashed over this area in 1962.

Today, the Line of Control stretches for 734 kilometers (456 miles) through dense forests, over imposing mountains and across other rugged terrain. Though not an internationally recognized border, it serves as the de facto frontier between India and Pakistan, and its origins go back to the Ceasefire Line established by the United Nations after the fighting of 1947–8 (though slightly tweaked under the terms of the 1972 Simla Agreement that ended renewed hostilities).

The Line of Control was set up in the hope that it would be respected until a long-term solution could be found. While the UN maintains an observer presence along the Line, India does not recognize its jurisdiction, although it does tolerate its presence. One of the few areas of agreement between India and Pakistan is that any long-term resolution must be a bilateral settlement, achieved without further international intervention.

Despite the negotiations that went on when the Line was originally drawn up, differences in interpretation continue to lead to skirmishes. When tensions were at their highest, up to 80,000 troops amassed along its course, sometimes encamped on mountainsides less than 100 meters (330 ft) apart. An already delicate situation has grown yet more complex with the emergence of an armed separatist movement among Muslims on the Indian side, who want to be part of neither state.

HAIR TRIGGER A band of armed militants at a base on the Pakistani side of the Line of Control in 1999. The dispute is not simply between those wanting to be part of India or Pakistan, but includes other groups demanding autonomy and the further complication of Chinese interests in the region.

In the 1990s, India began construction of a barrier on its side of the Line, designed, it said, to stem the flow of arms to militants on the Indian side and to prevent incursions from the Pakistani side. Completed in 2004, the barrier consists of two rows of heavily alarmed barbed-wire fencing, varying in height from 2.5 to 4 meters (8–13 ft), with the land in between laced with mines. Pakistan argues that the barrier breaches various bilateral and international agreements, and that the border should remain undemarcated. Islamabad also claims that mines have maimed and killed a large number of civilians going about legitimate daily business. India, meanwhile, says that Pakistani incursions were reduced by 80 percent within a year of the barrier’s completion.