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Pakistan has bin Laden wife, children in custody
[Emirates 24/7] A senior Pak intelligence official said one of the late Osama bin Laden's... who is now among the dear departed, though not among the dearest... daughters had seen her father being rubbed out by US forces, and was one of about 10 relatives of the al Qaeda leader in jug pending interrogation. The official, who declined to be identified, said the daughter, aged 12 or 13, was one of the people who had confirmed that the criminal mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks had been killed by US commandos in a raid early on Monday. The relatives -- one of bin Laden's wives and up to eight children -- will be interrogated and then probably turned over to their countries of origin, and not the United States, in accordance with Pak law, he said. The official said the wife and children were left behind after an American transport helicopter, possibly an MH-60 Sea Hawk, was abandoned because of mechanical problems. He said there was not enough room for the group on the other helicopters, which were transporting bin Laden's body, other male captives and the commandos. A small US strike team dropped by helicopter to bin Laden's hide-out in Abbottabad, near the Pak capital Islamabad, and shot him dead. The revelation bin Laden had been holed up in a compound in the military garrison town for years has threatened to worsen U.S. ties with nuclear-armed Pakistain, and raised questions over how the al Qaeda leader could live in comfort near Islamabad. The Pak intelligence official acknowledged bin Laden's whereabouts may cause problems with the United States, and also embarrass Pakistain. "It looks bad," he said. "It makes us look like a fool or an idiot. It's pretty embarrassing." But, he added, the CIA had not had any luck finding bin Laden for 10 years either. "Had we known where he was, we would have gotten him ourselves," the official said. The White House counterterrorism chief said on Tuesday there was no evidence Pak officials knew bin Laden was living at a compound deep inside the country, but the United States was also not ruling out the possibility. Echoing President  Asif Ali President Ten PercentZardari ... sticky-fingered husband of the late Benazir Bhutto ... , the Pak official said the United States had acted alone in killing bin Laden, and that it had not asked for permission to enter Pak airspace. "There is every possibility that what radars were there (in Abbottabad) were jammed," the official said, adding that up to 40 commandos had attacked the bin Laden compound. But he said it was possible that some of the U.S. aircraft used in the raid had come from the Pak air base of Ghazi, just 54 km (33 miles) away from Abbottabad, while the transport helicopters possibly came from Afghanistan. Ghazi was used by the United States for humanitarian relief operations after the floods of 2010. Posted by: Fred 2011-05-04 |
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