Islambad, May 04: The Pakistani government has hit back at suggestions it is an untrustworthy partner on the fight against terrorism, following the discovery that Osama bin Laden was living in the country undetected.
In an opinion piece for the Washington Post, president Asif Ali Zardari declared his country is possibly the world’s greatest victim of terrorism and that Pakistanis applaud the silencing of bin Laden, who was killed in raid by US special forces.
The Pakistani foreign ministry has released a statement categorically denying that it had any knowledge of the operation against bin Laden and condemning what it calls the unauthorised unilateral action.
But the government also claims credit for supplying the CIA with information in the run-up to the operation.
Retired brigadier Shaukat Qadir says he is convinced bin Laden was betrayed and he thinks Pakistan’s intelligence service, the ISI, must have been involved.
“I’m quite certain he was sold out,” he said.
“If he is sold out, do you think anybody from Al Qaeda or even the Taliban could talk directly to the CIA? It has to go through the ISI. There is no other channel.”
The former head of ISI, Hamid Gul, says there is good reason why the US did not inform Pakistan of its plans.
“The main reason I suspect is that they didn’t want him alive and if ISI had been tipped off ISI would have gone and caught him,” he said.
“Then they would have presented him for trial and something like that and many stories – untold stories and mysterious stories – would have come out.”
Faced with the criticisms and conspiracy theories, Pakistan’s foreign ministry has released a statement categorically denying that its civil or military leadership had any knowledge of the operation.
However, the foreign ministry says it had suspicions about goings on in Abbottabad and it shared that intelligence with the Americans.
“As far as the target compound is concerned, ISI had been sharing information with the CIA and other friendly intelligence agencies since 2009,” the statement said.
“The intelligence flow indicating some foreigners were in the surroundings of Abbottabad continued until mid-April 2011.
“It is important to highlight that taking advantage of much superior technological assets, the CIA exploited the intelligence leads given by us to identify and reach Osama bin Laden.”
–Agencies–