One year later, Pak claims credit for Osama killing

One year after expressing outrage over the violation of its territorial integrity when US forces tracked and killed al Qaeda head Osama Bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan is now claiming credit for his death. The Pakistani government initially welcomed the raid that killed bin Laden in his three-story compound, but within hours the mood changed as it became clear that Pakistan’s army was cut out of the operation. Any discussions over how bin Laden managed to stay undetected in Pakistan were drowned out in anger at what the army portrayed as a treacherous act by a supposed ally. However Pakistan’s Defence Minister Ahmed Mukhtar has now said the Pakistan government and its armed forces played a vital role in tracking down Osama bin Laden through a mobile phone SIM. Ahmed Mukhtar told the Dawn newspaper that it was Pakistan’s armed forces that had weakened the Al Qaeda’s terror network, [caption id=“attachment_296730” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“From joy to outrage to joy - what is Pakistan’s connection to Osama? Reuters”]  [/caption] He later told _BBC Urdu_Service that Osama was hunted down through a mobile phone’s SIM/chip, which was found “fortuitously”. Mukhtar said Pakistan was bound by a contract with the US to hand over all Arabic and English data found during the search for Osama. Similarly, the US too was to provide all Urdu data to Pakistan for intelligence sharing purposes. He said the military was currently looking into material recovered from the compound in Abbottabad where Osama was killed by US special forces May 2 last year. A week after the raid, President Barack Obama said bin Laden had a “support network” in Pakistan and the country must investigate how he evaded capture. Pakistan responded by announcing the formation of a committee to investigate bin Laden’s presence in Pakistan as well as the circumstances surrounding the US raid. Soon after it began its work, the head of the committee said he was sure that security forces were not hiding bin Laden. Other statements since then have also suggested the report will be more of a whitewash than a genuine probe. Since the raid, Pakistan has tried to close one of the most notorious chapters in its history. The three-story compound in Abbottabad that housed him for six years was razed by bulldozers in a surprise, nighttime operation. Just last week, his three wives and 11 daughters, children and grandchildren were deported to Saudi Arabia; their side of the story is unlikely to be told anytime soon. Agencies