ISLAMABAD (AFP) – Pakistan's prime minister on Monday dismissed as "absurd" accusations that Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden must have benefited from official complicity or incompetence to hide out in his country.
Addressing parliament in his first comments since bin Laden was killed by US Navy SEALs a week ago less than a mile from a top military academy, Yousuf Raza Gilani promised an investigation, to be led by a top Pakistani general.
Pakistan is a key Washington ally in the US-led war on terrorism, but with already tense relations stretched even further by the discovery of bin Laden, Gilani issued thinly veiled criticisms of Washington.
He also bowed to domestic opposition of America's covert action on Pakistani soil, saying: "Unilateralism runs the inherent risk of serious consequences."
Gilani said that he had "full confidence in the high command of the Pakistan Armed Forces and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI)" spy agency, both accused of failing to spot bin Laden hiding under their noses or even of protecting him.
"We are determined to get to the bottom of how, when and why about OBL's presence in Abbottabad," he said. "Allegations of complicity or incompetence are absurd. We emphatically reject such accusations."
The premier has been under mounting pressure from both Washington and his own people after bin Laden was confirmed to have been living in an urban compound only 55 kilometres (35 miles) from Islamabad.
There has been an outcry in the US with President Barack Obama saying the terror kingpin must have had some kind of backing.
"We think that there had to be some sort of support network for bin Laden inside of Pakistan," Obama, speaking on the matter for the first time, told the CBS show "60 Minutes".
"But we don't know who or what that support network was. We don't know whether there might have been some people inside of government, people outside of government, and that's something that we have to investigate and, more importantly, the Pakistani government has to investigate."
Following Islamabad's complaints about US "unilateralism," White House spokesman Jay Carney said Washington took Pakistani complaints seriously but added: "we also do not apologise" for the raid.
He said Obama was convinced that he had the "right and imperative" to mount the raid.
Helicopter-borne US Navy SEALs carried out a raid lasting less than 40 minutes, killing bin Laden and seizing a vast haul of data from the compound in Abbottabad on May 2.
Senior US officials have said they had no proof that Islamabad knew about bin Laden's hideout.
But outraged US lawmakers have voiced suspicion that elements of Pakistan's military intelligence services must have known his whereabouts, and are demanding that billions of dollars in crucial American aid be suspended.
Similarly, Pakistanis are furiously asking whether their military was too incompetent to know bin Laden was there or, worse, conspired to protect him, while at the same time denouncing the perceived impunity of the American raid.
Gilani sought to deflect the criticism, blaming "all intelligence agencies of the world" for the failure to locate bin Laden, and declaring: "Pakistan is not the birthplace of Al-Qaeda."
In an allusion to US funding for Pakistan's role in the war against Soviet troops in Afghanistan, which ultimately gave birth to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, Gilani said it was unfair for his country to take all the blame.
"Collectively, we must acknowledge facts and see our faces in the mirror of history. Pakistan alone cannot be held to account for flawed policies and blunders of others," he said in his televised speech.
"We did not invite Osama bin Laden to Pakistan or even to Afghanistan."
Opposition leader Chaudhry Nisar Ali said Gilani's speech "failed to satisfy the nation", saying that the raid raised "the question of Pakistan's existence and sovereignty".
Powerful army chief General Ashfaq Kayani also condemned the government's handling of the affair. "Public dismay and despondency has also been aggravated due to insufficient formal response," he said in a statement.
The highly influential military establishment is perceived to be Pakistan's strongest institution but the debacle has seriously embarrassed it.
It has hit back at criticism, demanding that the United States cut its troop presence in the country to a "minimum" and threatening to review cooperation if another unilateral raid is conducted.
Gilani also insisted Pakistan reserves the right to "retaliate with full force," although he stopped short of spelling what, if anything, would be done if the US staged another high-profile anti-terror raid.
The White House says Obama reserves the right to take action again in the country.
In his interview, broadcast Sunday, Obama held out the possibility of further action, saying that the vast haul of data gathered from bin Laden's secretive compound could lead to other Al-Qaeda figures.
"We've got a chance to, I think, really deliver a fatal blow to this organisation, if we follow through aggressively in the months to come," he said.
"We anticipate that it can give us leads to other terrorists that we've been looking for a long time, other high-value targets."
White House National Security Advisor Tom Donilon has said the United States was focusing its attention on bin Laden's longstanding deputy, the Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Reportedly last seen in October 2001 in eastern Afghanistan, close to the lawless tribal regions along the Pakistan border, Zawahiri has released several videos from hiding, calling for war on the West.
For a decade, Islamabad has been America's wary Afghan war ally, despite widespread public opposition and militant bomb attacks across the nuclear-armed country that have killed several thousand people.
But Pakistan has never been fully trusted by either Kabul or Washington, which accuse its powerful military of fostering the Afghan Taliban it spawned during the 1980s resistance to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.
The White House has called on Islamabad to help counter growing mistrust by granting US investigators access to three of bin Laden's widows who are in Pakistani custody and could have vital information on Al-Qaeda.
Bin Laden's Yemeni wife, who was shot in the leg during the raid, has told investigators that the Al-Qaeda kingpin and his family had lived in the compound in Abbottabad for five years, an official said.
Al-Qaeda has acknowledged bin Laden's death -- and vowed to avenge it -- but no successor has been announced and debate is now swirling over who might take the reins of the terror network.
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