Musharraf: No deal made to let US get bin Laden

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ISLAMABAD (AP) — Former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf denied Tuesday that his administration struck an agreement with the United States years ago to let American special forces kill or capture Osama bin Laden inside Pakistan.

The denial follows a report in a British newspaper that Washington and Islamabad reached a secret deal nearly a decade ago allowing the U.S. to conduct operations against bin Laden and two other top al-Qaida leaders on Pakistani soil.

“Pervez Musharraf has seen a media report, and let me make it clear that no such agreement had been signed during his tenure,” said Musharraf’s spokesman, Fawad Chaudhry. He said there was no oral agreement either.

U.S. Navy SEALs conducted a unilateral operation May 2 inside Pakistan that killed bin Laden, the world’s most wanted terrorist. The pre-dawn raid was viewed by many Pakistanis as a national humiliation delivered by a deeply unpopular America.

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The World should not forget Pakistan’s sacrifices

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Hours after the 9/11 aerial strikes, he was asked to make a choice. "You are with us or against us," the then US secretary of state Colin Powel told him. Pervez Musharraf, then the president of Pakistan, didn’t have much of a choice. He joined forces with the US in the war on terror as Osama bin Laden forged ahead with his mission: Talibinisation of Pakistan. Nearly a decade later, the US’s hunt for its most wanted man has ended in the heartland of Pakistan, barely 50 km from capital Islamabad where bin Laden was shot dead in a special operation. Musharraf, who now lives in exile, in Dubai, is a worried man. One can’t discredit Pakistan and still fight terror, he tells Soma Banerjee.

What would you have done if you were the head of state in Pakistan today?
This wouldn’t have happened if I were the head of state. It is Pakistan’s security forces that should initiate such a military action, not foreign troops. During my regime, our forces have hunted down high-value targets, aided by the US and other countries, but each operation inside the country was carried out by Pakistani soldiers. It is embarrassing for Pakistan if it was unaware of the American operation against Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad.

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Pakistan should have been involved in Osama raid

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musharraf_apmlFormer Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf admits that the US did not involve Islamabad in the operation to take out 9/11 mastermind and Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden because of a lack of trust.

"I think there is a lack of trust — the trust and confidence, definitely.

"That is why, maybe, they (the US) didn’t involve them (Pakistan)," he told CNN.

He also says he was surprised by how Osama could have been staying so close to a Pakistani military base in Abbottabad, about 120 km from the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, and yet nobody knew he was there.

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Nawaz Sharif should seek apology from nation

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ISLAMABAD: All Pakistan Muslim League Quaid, former President of Pakistan Pervez Musharraf said that PML-N Chief Mian Nawaz Sharif should seek apology from nation for supporting a foreign journalist Kim Barker in finding out whereabouts of Ajmal Qasab from Pakistan and for giving important intelligence reports of the country.

According to a press stamen issued here Sunday which stated that “Kim Barker, a US based journalists in her recently published book, ‘The Taliban Shuffle’ pointed out that former Prime Minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif treated her likely a playboy by making phone calls off and on and also gave her a gift of I-phone”.

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