Pakistan's president denies sheltering bin Laden
Source: Agencies |
May 4, 2011, Wednesday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
PAKISTAN'S leader denied suggestions his country's security forces may have sheltered Osama bin Laden before he was killed by American forces, even as Britain said yesterday that it would be demanding answers from Islamabad as to how the al-Qaida chief was able to live undetected in a large house in a garrison town.
Asif Ali Zardari's comments in a Washington Post opinion piece yesterday were Pakistan's first formal response to the suspicions by United States lawmakers and other critics.
"Some in the US press have suggested that Pakistan lacked vitality in its pursuit of terrorism, or worse yet that we were disingenuous and actually protected the terrorists we claimed to be pursuing. Such baseless speculation may make exciting cable news, but it doesn't reflect fact," the president wrote.
US Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin said Pakistan's intelligence and army have "got a lot of explaining to do," given that bin Laden was holed up in such a large house and the fact that its residents took the unusual step of burning their garbage and avoiding any trash collection.
"It's hard to imagine that the military or police did not have any ideas what was going on," he said.
US officials said that Pakistani officials were not told about the early morning helicopter raid until the strike team had killed bin Laden and returned to Afghanistan from where they took off from, citing security reasons.
Many Pakistanis were surprised at how this was possible, especially when initial reports said the choppers took off from a Pakistani air base.
Zardari said it "was not a joint operation" but that Pakistani cooperation, in a general sense, had helped lead them to bin Laden.
"A decade of cooperation and partnership between the United States and Pakistan led up to the elimination of Osama bin Laden as a continuing threat to the civilized world," the president said.
Asif Ali Zardari's comments in a Washington Post opinion piece yesterday were Pakistan's first formal response to the suspicions by United States lawmakers and other critics.
"Some in the US press have suggested that Pakistan lacked vitality in its pursuit of terrorism, or worse yet that we were disingenuous and actually protected the terrorists we claimed to be pursuing. Such baseless speculation may make exciting cable news, but it doesn't reflect fact," the president wrote.
US Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin said Pakistan's intelligence and army have "got a lot of explaining to do," given that bin Laden was holed up in such a large house and the fact that its residents took the unusual step of burning their garbage and avoiding any trash collection.
"It's hard to imagine that the military or police did not have any ideas what was going on," he said.
US officials said that Pakistani officials were not told about the early morning helicopter raid until the strike team had killed bin Laden and returned to Afghanistan from where they took off from, citing security reasons.
Many Pakistanis were surprised at how this was possible, especially when initial reports said the choppers took off from a Pakistani air base.
Zardari said it "was not a joint operation" but that Pakistani cooperation, in a general sense, had helped lead them to bin Laden.
"A decade of cooperation and partnership between the United States and Pakistan led up to the elimination of Osama bin Laden as a continuing threat to the civilized world," the president said.
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