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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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