Islamabad has still failed to release information on whether its security forces were protecting Osama bin Laden, a year after the terrorist’s death, the Washington Post is reporting. Relations between the American and Pakistani governments are still strained as a result.
The Pakistani army has been accused of providing some support against al-Qaida and keeping the Afgahn Taliban as strategic allies. A week after bin Laden was killed, American president Barack Obama said the terrorist had a support network in Pakistan, and the country should investigate how he evaded capture. Pakistan responded by forming a committee to investigate bin Laden’s presence in the country, as well as the circumstances around the American raid.
But soon after it began working, the committee said it was sure that security forces weren’t hiding bin Laden. Committee spokesman retired Col. Mohammad Irfan Naziri said the official finding may not be released publicly.
While the Obama administration said it’s disappointed about the progress of the investigation, there isn’t any evidence suggesting bin Laden had high-level help inside Pakistan. Suspicions have arisen over one of his wives’ claims in a police interrogation report that he lived in five houses while on the run. Shawn Gregory, the director of the Pakistan Security research Unit at Bradford University in the U.K., said it’s “ridiculous that he wasn’t being protected.”
Written by: Karen Benardello
