PM Gilani says allegations of Pakistan complicity on Osama bin Laden were "absurd"

Islamabad : Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani Monday told the National Assembly that allegations of complicity and incompetence on presence of Osama bin Laden in Abbotabad were "absurd".

In a policy statement in the House about the United States Special Forces operation which led to killing of bin Laden last week, Gilani said Lt. General Javed Iqbal would lead the investigation. "We are determined to get to the bottom of how, when and why about bin Laden's presence in Abbottabad," hestated.

He spoke of Pakistan's record in fighting against terrorism, highlighted the "price paid" in civilian and military losses, and the numbers of al-Qaeda militants killed or arrested. "It was the ISI that passed leads to the CIA that enabled the US intelligence to use superior technological assets and focus on the area in which Osama Bin Laden was eventually found. The ISI, and the military, had the full support and confidence of the government," he added.

He said the US raid was "a violation of sovereignty. The US had helped create al-Qaeda during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The US had then widely dispersed al-Qaeda's fighters by following a flawed military strategy to try to capture Bin Laden in the mountains of Tora Bora in 2001.
"We did not invite al-Qaeda to Pakistan," he said. "The failure to find Bin Laden for 10 years was theresult of an intelligence failure... of all the intelligence agencies of the world and that blame games serve no purpose. The al-Qaeda chief, along with other al-Qaeda operators, had managed to elude global intelligence agencies for a long time. He was constantly being tracked, not only by the ISI butalso by other intelligence agencies, Prime Minister said. PPI