Pakistan denies allegations
Pakistan: Pakistan Monday dismissed as “absurd” accusations that
complicity or incompetence had allowed Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden
to hide out in the country for years and vowed a full investigation.
Addressing Parliament in his first comments since bin Laden was
killed by US special forces a week ago, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza
Gilani said the official inquiry would be led by a top Pakistani
general.
“We are determined to get to the bottom of how, when and why about
OBL’s presence in Abbottabad,” he said. “Allegations of complicity or
incompetence are absurd. We emphatically reject such accusations.”
Pakistan is a key Washington ally in the US-led war on terrorism, but
tense relations have been stretched even further by the discovery of bin
Laden, dubbed OBL, living less than a mile from a military academy.
Gilani was also critical of Washington’s operation to storm bin
Laden’s hideout in the leafy town of Abbottabad, about 55 kilometers (35
miles) from Islamabad without informing Pakistan first.
“Unilateralism runs the inherent risk of serious consequences,” he
warned amid growing domestic opposition to America’s covert action on
Pakistani soil. But Washington emphatically refused Monday to say sorry
for the raid which took out America’s enemy Number 1, blamed for
masterminding the September 11, 2001 attacks in which almost 3,000
people were killed.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said President Barack Obama was
convinced he had done the right thing by sending in the special forces.
“We obviously take the statements and concerns of the Pakistani
government seriously, but we also do not apologise for the action that
we took, that this president took,” Carney said.
“It’s simply beyond a doubt in his mind that he had the right and the
imperative to do this,” said Carney, who has warned that Obama reserves
the right to act again against terror leaders in Pakistan if necessary.
Amid growing suspicion that there must have been some kind of collusion
to enable the Al-Qaeda leader to live undetected in the town, Gilani
said he had “full confidence in the high command of the Pakistan Armed
Forces and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI)” spy agency.
Both have been accused of failing to spot bin Laden hiding under
their noses or even perhaps further of even actively protecting him. AFP
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