Pakistan blamed world-wide intelligence lapses for a failure to detect Osama bin Laden living near its capital, while Washington worked to establish whether its ally had sheltered the al Qaeda leader. A US acknowledgement bin Laden was unarmed when shot dead in Monday's raid in Abbottabad raised accusations Washington had violated international law. Exact circumstances of his death remained unclear and could yet fuel controversy, especially in the Muslim world.
"There is an intelligence failure of the whole world, not just Pakistan alone," Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani told reporters in Paris. "(If there are) ... lapses from the Pakistan side, that means there are lapses from the whole world." Gilani hinted at a probe into the "intelligence failure" to nab the al Qaeda founder and 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden, hiding near Pakistan's elite military training academy. Gilani was responding to a question, when asked to comment on the incident that led to the death and extraction of the body and family members of the world's most wanted terrorist.
Talking to reporters after attending a business forum here, Gilani was asked whether the fact that Osama was able to hide so close to the Pakistan Military Academy was an intelligence failure, Gilani said, "there can be an intelligence failure."
He said rather it was the failure of all intelligence agencies of the world. He hoped that following the episode, there would be better co-ordination amongst all the agencies. Asked whether there would be an official investigation, Gilani said, "that must have already been ordered." He said he had been in power only since 2008 and questioned what had happened in the past seven years.
"In spite of having best intelligence agencies (they) could not find him," Gilani said. Reacting to the comments by the British Prime Minister David Cameron, Gilani said he acknowledged the sacrifices of Pakistan and called for sending some positive messages. "Instead of a blame game, we should respect what Pakistan has done in the war against terror," Gilani said. To a question whether the United States had sought Pakistan's permission prior to the raid, Gilani said, "when we meet them we would ask them."
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