May 3, 2011

CIA director: U.S. was concerned Pakistan may ‘alert targets’ before bin Laden operation

Pakistani president denies that his government may have sheltered bin Laden, but admits that his security forces were left out of U.S. operation to kill the al Qaida chief.

By Reuters via Haaretz

http://www.jewishjournal.com/ world/article/cia_director_us_was_concerned_pakistan_may_alert_targets_before_bin_laden/

U.S. officials were concerned that Pakistan could jeopardize the Osama bin Laden operation and “might alert the targets,” CIA Director Leon Panetta said on Tuesday.

Meanwhile Pakistan’s president denied on Tuesday that his government may have sheltered a bin Laden but admitted that his security forces were left out of a U.S. operation to kill the al Qaida chief.

The revelation that bin Laden had holed up in a luxury compound in the military garrison town of Abbottabad, possibly for five to six years, prompted many U.S. lawmakers to demand a review of the billions of dollars in aid Washington gives to nuclear-armed Pakistan.