'No access' to US helicopter
Source: Agencies |
August 18, 2011, Thursday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
China has rejected media reports that Pakistan gave it access to a radar-evading helicopter that crashed during the US mission to kill Osama bin Laden, calling them "preposterous."
The international business newspaper Financial Times reported on Sunday that Pakistan allowed Chinese military engineers to photograph and take samples of the stealth chopper before giving it back to the United States.
In its first public response, China's Defense Ministry said in a one-line statement late on Tuesday: "This report is baseless and preposterous."
The US suspects that Pakistan shared the technology with China in retaliation for its May 2 raid that killed bin Laden on Pakistani soil, humiliating Islamabad.
A Pakistani official has denied the charge, saying Pakistan was aware the US had bin Laden's compound and the helicopter wreckage under round-the-clock surveillance after the raid, so it would know whether foreign experts had examined it.
The helicopter was one of two modified Black Hawks that defense experts said evidently used radar-evading technology plus noise and heat suppression devices to slip across the Afghan-Pakistan border, avoid detection by Pakistani air defenses and deliver two dozen Navy SEALs into the hiding place of the al-Qaida leader.
One of the helicopters crash-landed during the mission and its main body was blown up, apparently to keep its stealth components secret.
Photos of the wreckage with the tail still visible flashed around the world, and defense experts noticed it appeared to have previously undisclosed technology.
The relationship between the US and Pakistan took a nose dive after the bin Laden raid, which prompted celebrations in the US but anger and embarrassment in Islamabad.
The international business newspaper Financial Times reported on Sunday that Pakistan allowed Chinese military engineers to photograph and take samples of the stealth chopper before giving it back to the United States.
In its first public response, China's Defense Ministry said in a one-line statement late on Tuesday: "This report is baseless and preposterous."
The US suspects that Pakistan shared the technology with China in retaliation for its May 2 raid that killed bin Laden on Pakistani soil, humiliating Islamabad.
A Pakistani official has denied the charge, saying Pakistan was aware the US had bin Laden's compound and the helicopter wreckage under round-the-clock surveillance after the raid, so it would know whether foreign experts had examined it.
The helicopter was one of two modified Black Hawks that defense experts said evidently used radar-evading technology plus noise and heat suppression devices to slip across the Afghan-Pakistan border, avoid detection by Pakistani air defenses and deliver two dozen Navy SEALs into the hiding place of the al-Qaida leader.
One of the helicopters crash-landed during the mission and its main body was blown up, apparently to keep its stealth components secret.
Photos of the wreckage with the tail still visible flashed around the world, and defense experts noticed it appeared to have previously undisclosed technology.
The relationship between the US and Pakistan took a nose dive after the bin Laden raid, which prompted celebrations in the US but anger and embarrassment in Islamabad.
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