Bin Laden may be dead, but his ideology lives on

Editor's note: Dr. Sajjan Gohel is the Director of International Security at
intelligence and security think tank the Asia Pacific Foundation.

(CNN) -- What role did Pakistan play in the operation against Osama bin
Laden?

I would be surprised if Pakistan played a significant role in the operation
to apprehend and kill Osama bin Laden, based on the fact that the drone
strikes that the U.S. conduct in the tribal areas are done covertly, the
authorities in Pakistan are not informed until the very last minute, because
of the fear of information leaks.

An operation of this scale in the central urban heartland of Pakistan would
mean that information would be kept on a need-to-know basis. Only a few
people within the CIA would have known about this operation, it would
definitely not have gone out to another country's intelligence agency,
especially when there's so little trust with the ISI [Inter-Services
Intelligence, the Pakistani intelligence service].

There has been a deterioration in relations at a strategic level -- the ISI
leaked out the name of the CIA station chief in Islamabad, and a person
working out of the U.S. embassy was detained by the Pakistani authorities,
allegedly working for the CIA.

The fact that the U.S. has been conducting drone strikes is an illustration
of the fact that there has been little cooperation -- if not none -- with
the Pakistani authorities.

What was Pakistan's part?

Security expert on Osama death

Bin Laden's death affects the world

We've seen the evolution of relations between Pakistan and America go from
'frenemies' to outright enemies.

Historically, have the U.S. and Pakistan had good ties?

The relationship has always been problematic, flawed, lacking trust. It goes
back to during the time of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan: The U.S.
and the West turned to Pakistan to provide and assist the Mujahideen in
removing the Soviets from Afghanistan.

There was a strategic relationship, but following the Soviets leaving
Afghanistan, that relationship went into suspension.

It was only restarted following 9/11: The Bush Administration turned to
General Pervez Musharraf, the military ruler of Pakistan, who at that time
had become a social pariah.

He was asked to round up the leadership of al Qaeda, of the Taliban, to
prevent them from creating an infrastructure inside Pakistan. In return
Pakistan would be rewarded with generous aid from the United States and
other countries.

Musharraf was very skilled at saying all the right things, but doing
virtually nothing, and that scenario continued, from 9/11, right up to the
end of Musharraf's tenure as ruler of Pakistan in 2007.

It took a long time but the U.S. finally began to realise that the promises
the Pakistanis were making were empty promises: Nothing of real tangible
significance was achieved. Information that was being shared ended up being
passed on to al Qaeda, and counterterrorism operations were therefore
flawed.

The Obama Administration disagreed with the Bush Administration on issues
like Iraq, Guantanamo Bay, but the one issue they absolutely built upon was
on the drone strikes policy, because if they couldn't deal with al Qaeda on
the ground, they would try to tackle them from the skies. Drone strikes were
increased substantially under the Obama Administration, because there was
this lack of trust.

The perception was that the U.S. would support Pakistan publicly while
pressurising them privately. Over time we've seen the public support wane.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in Pakistan last year, made it clear
that she could not believe that the authorities in Pakistan did not know
where bin Laden was.

What has the reaction been in the region to news of bin Laden's death?

Keep in mind the fact that there are protests when drone strikes take place
in the tribal areas. This operation to take out Osama bin Laden was in the
urban heartland of Punjab. This is the core of where the military
establishment is from, so there is going to be a falling out.

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Publicly, the Pakistanis will try to make out that they were aware of the
operation, and that they played a role in it. Privately, they will be
seething that this was done on their territory.

And there will be protests. The radicals and the extremists inside
Pakistan --whose infrastructure has not been dismantled, as Musharraf had
promised -- they will organize mass protests. There will be propaganda by
the radicals and the extremists to try and exploit the situation.

U.S. interests, U.S. personnel, U.S. embassies and consulates will have to
take extra precautions.

If bin Laden's death is of symbolic seismic significance, then the fallout
in Pakistan will be equally matched.

There is always a reaction. But keep in mind that the reaction may not come
from al Qaeda -- it may come from an affiliate, from the groups that have
emerged or are emerging from al Qaeda's shadows: Lashkar-e-Toiba, the
Pakistani Taliban, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

These groups have the infrastructure, the resources, the personnel and the
desire to plot and plan mass casualty attacks, and they may be in a better
position than bin Laden's al Qaeda to carry out a reprisal attack.

Will Osama bin Laden's death have a wider impact?

Al Qaeda central is not the group it once was: the drone strikes have been
confining their operational space, one by one the leadership has been picked
off, they don't have the ability to train people from the West as they once
could.

Their resources are depleted, they are not able to replenish their ranks, so
Al Qaeda central may not be able to cause a significant reaction, but other
groups are potentially in a better position to do it.

There will be problems that will emerge from this -- the worry is that we
don't know potentially what they could be, or when.

The silence is going to be the greatest fear, because it's not necessarily
that these groups would want to carry out attacks regionally or globally
imminently. They may wait, they may bide their time. We're talking about
weeks, months.

Al Qaeda's affiliates have always had very long term thinking -- it's not
about today or tomorrow, it's about next year.

They won't necessarily want to carry out something that will fail and
humiliate the group further.

We also have to bear in mind that bin Laden has been killed, but his deputy,
Ayman al-Zawahiri is still at large. He has very much taken on the mantle of
issuing al Qaeda's messages: Audio, video, through the internet; and his
protege, Abu Yahya al-Libi is also out there.

They will certainly be issuing a message at some point, trying to create a
rallying call for vengeance, to inspire their adherents and followers to
take up arms.

Bin Laden may be dead, but his ideology still lives, and the message will
continue to indoctrinate young, impressionable minds across the world.