Authorities were unaware of Osama bin Laden’s presence: PM Gilani
Thursday, May 10th, 2012 10:59:33 by Faisal Farooq
Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani rejected the impression that his country had been sheltered Osama bin Laden, terming it a universal intelligence failure to detect him for so long time.
In an interview with British media, the Pakistani Prime Minister defended his security agencies saying they were not involved in sheltering the Al-Qaeda leader.
Gilani asserted, “There is no complicity. I think it’s an intelligence failure from all over the world,” Gilani said in an interview with the Guardian. He denied suggestions that elements within Pakistan’s military may have been aware of Bin Laden’s hideout”.
He didn’t share what his intelligence services had gleaned from Osama bin Laden’s wives and children during investigation.
At the same time, he also avoided to comment on documents seized at the Abbottabad hideout and selectively released by the American officials. PM Gilani intimated that he didn’t know whether Aymen-al-Zawahiri was in Pakistan
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton claimed she believed Zawahiri, who inherited the Al-Qaida leadership after Bin Laden’s death, was hiding somewhere in Pakistan.
About the Hillary Clinton’s statement he remarked, “If there is any credible information please share it with us, so we can be quick and achieve our targets”. He uttered similar remarks about presence of Mullah Omar, the Taliban commander.
The Pakistan Prime Minister is on a five-day trip to United Kingdom to meet his counterpart and to enhance bilateral ties. In his view, Pakistan is not part of the problem rather part of the solution when it came to the global issue of fighting terrorism.
He was of the opinion that Pakistan had paid a huge price in form of some 35,000 lives including 5,000 police and military personnel. Furthermore, he said they are catering over 3.6 million Afghan refugees for the past three decades.
Gilani confessed that present relations with the Obama administration hadn’t been too normal, saying the CIA and ISI were still working hard together to achieve high-level targets.
He declined to comment whether the Taliban should play a role in a future national unity government in Kabul, or were integral to a political solution in Afghanistan.
Instead, he said, Islamabad supported political reconciliation in Afghanistan so long as it was Afghan-owned and Afghan-led.
Tags: Abbottabad, America, Aymen-al-Zawahiri, Barack Obama, CIA, David Cameroon, ISI, Mullah Omar, NATO, Osama bin Laden, Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani, United Kingdom, USShort URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=21932
Posted by Faisal Farooq
on May 10 2012. Filed under Latest News, National, Pakistan.
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It’s not denial. It’s dishonesty. The stuff of politics. The statement just sounds silly. A bit like Sadaam’s spokesman silly denials on the eve of US troops entering Baghdad. He is not the only one who made these sort of statements. Other folks who speak for the nation’s security are equally culpable. The PM’s line of communications comes from another place. They don’t understand that this approach backfires on Pakistan and it’s citizens. Even if they understood this I don’t think they particularly care.
Conformity to repetitive religious rituals and practices is highly applauded and appreciated in our society.How many times have i heard on tv people saying about a militant ‘ bauhat naik aadmi tha,paanch wakt ka namazi,rozaydar aur parhezgar insaan tha’ . It seems that if we perform religious rituals,all our sins and crimes will be forgiven by the public.