Pakistan didn’t help hide Osama: Malik
May 10th, 2011 - 8:55 pm ICT by IANS
New Delhi, May 10 (IANS) Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik Tuesday said his government did not help Osama bin Laden to hide in the country, but the Al Qaeda leader was a “cunning terrorist” who visited Pakistan before and knew where to hide. Osama was gunned down May 2 in a covert raid by US forces on his compound in Pakistan’s Abbottabad town.
In an interview with CNN-IBN’s deputy foreign editor Suhasini Haidar, Malik said: “I deny any involvement of any Pakistani official or anybody from Pakistani establishment.
“The way he used to hide we could not identify. Dealing with a cunning terrorist like Osama, who came here as a young boy, he knew where to hide and how to hit and go.”
Malik said: “We knew he was a high value target and everybody should be happy about it. But Pakistan as a nation would never like its sovereignty inflicted.
“Without the permission from the government of Pakistan, any such action should not be taken. That’s why the investigation has been ordered to find out why we could not detect the incoming helicopter.”
“How can Pakistan spare him when he has killed so many people in Pakistan. All big blasts starting from Marriott onwards, his organisation was behind it,” the Pakistani minister said.
On US President Barack Obama’s comment that Osama bin Laden had a support structure in Pakistan, Malik said: “When President Obama says support structure he meant the support from people. Two people have been killed. The investigation would find who got them the land and how they could build this.
“He had everything inside like rations and food. Had there been support from the establishment he would have been freely supplied all that.”
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Tags: abbottabad, al qaeda, barack obama, blasts, cnn, cnn ibn, government of pakistan, helicopter, interior minister, marriott, New Delhi, osama bin laden, qaeda leader, rations, rehman malik, sovereignty, support structure, target, terrorist