The CIA readies an operation to capture or kill Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan, secretly training and equipping approximately 60 military commandos supplied by the Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) establishment.
The covert action, approved by President Clinton, includes a quid pro quo, that Pakistan would train and prepare the commandos and conduct the operation, in return for the lifting of economic sanctions imposed with Pakistan’s nuclear testing.
The plan is briefed and supposedly ready to go, but it is then aborted because on October 12, Pakistan Army General Pervez Musharraf takes control of the country in a military coup. Most would later say that no ISI-sponsored operation would have been successful given that the organization was filled with Taliban and al Qaeda sympathizers.