Afghan officials doubt Pakistan’s denials about Osama
Afghanistan officials have raised doubts about proclamations by Pakistan’s spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), that they did not know Osama bin Laden was living in their midst all these years.
When we talk about the location of the house and a military academy nearby ... at the very least it should be known about the activities inside the house and who is living there, said Zaher Azimy, a spokesman for the Afghan Defense Ministry
Osama was killed by US Special Forces in a compound at a military garrison in Abbottabad, just 35 miles north of the capital, Islamabad.
Remarks by the Afghan Defense Ministry represent the first explicit comments about their neighbor’s activities regarding the fallen al-Qaeda chieftain.
Zaher Azimy, a spokesman for the Afghan Defense Ministry, said the situation also raises grave questions about Pakistan’s ability to safeguard its arsenal of nuclear weapons.
If Pakistan's spy agency was not aware of the house near the academy, it brings the agency under question. If I was a security analyst, I would raise these very important questions, Azimy added.
Azimy looked at the broader picture.
If the [Pakistani spy] agency was not aware that the biggest terrorist had been living there for six long years, how can it protect its strategic weapons? he said.
How can the world be assured that the strategic and atomic weapons would not be in danger in the future?
Abdullah Abdullah, Afghanistan's former foreign minister and a presidential candidate in 2009, said he was not surprised Osama was found in Pakistan.
I would say that some groups in the establishment definitely knew that they were there, Abdullah told BBC .
A few hundred meters from the military academy? That's unbelievable that this could happen without anybody knowing in the establishment.”
Despite fears that Osama’s death might cause a spike in violence in Afghanistan, no major attacks have been reported in the country since the news came out.
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