ISLAMABAD, (Reuters) – Pakistan Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani rejected today allegations that the killing of Osama bin Laden by U.S. troops in the country showed Pakistani incompetence or complicity in hiding the al Qaeda leader.
Opposition politicians have stepped up their criticism of Pakistan’s leaders over the killing of bin Laden in a raid by U.S. special forces in a northern Pakistani town on May 2.
Pakistan welcomed the death of bin Laden, who plotted the Sept. 11, 2001, airliner attacks on the United States, as a step in the fight against militancy but also complained that the raid was a violation of its sovereignty.
The fact that bin Laden was found hiding in the garrison town of Abbottabad, 50 km (30 miles) from the capital, has led to accusations that Pakistani security agencies were either incompetent or sheltering the world’s most wanted man.
“Allegations of complicity or incompetence are absurd,” Gilani said in a televised address to parliament, adding that it was disingenuous for anyone to accuse Pakistan, including its spy agency, of “being in cahoots” with the al Qaeda network.
The U.S. raid has added to strains in ties between Islamabad and Washington, which are crucial to combating Islamist militants and to bringing stability to Afghanistan.
The United States has stopped short of accusing Pakistan of providing shelter to bin Laden.
Gilani warned that unilateral actions such as the U.S. Navy SEALs swoop on bin Laden’s hideout ran the risk of serious consequences, but he added that Pakistan attached high importance to its relations with the United States.
Pakistan’s main opposition party has called on Gilani and President Asif Ali Zardari to resign over the breach of sovereignty by U.S. special forces who slipped in from Afghanistan to storm the compound where bin Laden was holed up.
TENSE RELATIONS WITH WASHINGTON
Pakistani-U.S. relations were already fragile after a string of diplomatic disputes over issues including a big attack by a U.S. drone aircraft in March and Raymond Davis, a CIA contractor who shot dead two Pakistanis in the city of Lahore in January.
Potentially stirring tension further, a Pakistani TV channel and a newspaper published what they said was the name of the undercover CIA station chief in Islamabad.
The U.S. embassy declined to comment, but said no one of that name worked at the mission in Pakistan.
Last year, after the chief of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency was named in a U.S. civil case over attacks on the Indian city of Mumbai, the then-head of the CIA’s Islamabad station was named by Pakistani media and forced to leave the country.
The government and military have been embarrassed by the discovery of bin Laden in Abbottabad, near the country’s main military academy.
“If he was really living in that compound for five years … then why didn’t our agencies discover him?” former foreign minister Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri told reporters. “This has given anti-Pakistani elements a chance to ridicule us.”
