Bin Laden's Death Heaps Suspicion on Pakistan

Pakistan has long insisted Bin Laden was not in the country
By Kevin Spak,  Newser Staff
Posted May 2, 2011 8:48 AM CDT
Bin Laden's Death Heaps Suspicion on Pakistan
Pakistani soldiers patrol in the vicinity of a compound where it is believed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden lived in Abbottabad, Pakistan on Monday, May 2, 2011.   (AP Photo/Anjum Naveed)

When American forces finally tracked down Osama bin Laden, they found him right under the noses of Pakistan’s military, and that’s likely to ratchet tensions between the US and Pakistan even higher, both the New York Times and the LA Times speculate. Bin Laden was not found in some remote tribal area, but in a city of 500,000 people that houses three different military regiments. Indeed, Osama’s compound is almost adjacent to a military academy that the country's military chief visited last month.

President Obama made a point of crediting Pakistan for helping with the attack. But Pakistan doesn’t seem to want any part of it—in a statement from its foreign ministry today, it pointedly avoided any mention of Pakistani involvement, calling the attack a “direct action by US forces,” and saying that President Zardari had only learned about it when Obama called to tell him about it, the Washington Post observes. (More Osama bin Laden stories.)

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