Global General

Pakistan army warns US not to stage more raids

(Agencies)
Updated: 2011-05-06 11:33

The Davis case also led to criticism of the army after it backed a deal that allowed him to walk free after the US agreed to pay compensation to the relatives of the victims. Some media reports indicated Kayani had asked for a cut in American military personnel then, and it was unclear if Thursday's statement referred to that.

The army for the first time acknowledged "shortcomings in developing intelligence on the presence of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan." But it said its Inter-Services Intelligence agency had arrested or killed about 100 al Qaida terrorists and associates with or without CIA cooperation.

The statement said it provided initial intelligence on the whereabouts of bin Laden to the CIA but that the Americans developed it further and did not share it with the ISI "contrary to the existing practice between the two services."

The army warned the United States not to launch another attack like the one that took out bin Laden. On Wednesday, US State Department spokesman Mark Toner did not rule out the possibility the US would do just that.

Many of the world's most wanted militants are believed to be in Pakistan, including Ayman al-Zawahri, the man likely to succeed bin Laden, as well as leaders of the Afghan insurgency like Mullah Omar and Siraj Haqqani.

"Any similar action violating the sovereignty of Pakistan will warrant a review on the level of military/intelligence cooperation with the United States," the statement said. Earlier, the Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir warned of "disastrous consequences" if the US staged a similar attack on its territory.

The statement was not referring to CIA drone strikes on targets in the border region. Some of the drones are believed to take off from a Pakistani air base - unlike Monday's raid, in which the helicopters had taken off from Afghanistan and crossed into Pakistan without permission.

New details emerged, meanwhile, about an al Qaida operative arrested in Iraq in 2004 who was considered key to the intelligence operation that led to the raid on the compound that housed bin Laden.

A former CIA official said Hassan Ghul told CIA interrogators that he was helping Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistani militant group with historical links to Pakistani intelligence. The CIA reluctantly returned him to the Pakistanis in 2006 in the hopes of earning some political leverage, the former CIA official said, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss matters of intelligence.

For many here, the United States is perceived as more of a danger to Pakistan than bin Laden even though al Qaida and its associates have carried out scores of suicide bombings in recent years, many in public places or mosques and shrines.

"If another country's aircraft intrudes on your territory, you should shoot it down instead of turning a blind eye," said Fateh Ullah, a 38-year-old breadmaker in Abbottabad, the town where bin Laden was hiding. "What we should care about is the safety of our country."

The account of Monday's attack given by Bashir, the foreign secretary, was the most detailed public one yet by a Pakistani official.

He said the first that Pakistan knew of the raid was when the helicopters buzzed over Abbottabad after evading Pakistani radar. He said troops were sent to the scene "once it became clear they were not our helicopters" but that the Americans had already left by the time they arrived.

Pakistan then scrambled two F-16 fighter jets but the American choppers had apparently already made it back to Afghanistan before they could be intercepted, he said. He said that about 3 a.m. Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen called Kayani, the Pakistani army chief, to inform him that the raid had taken place.