Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan on Thursday said that the US “martyred” former al-Qaeda leader and mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks Osama bin Laden, a term that is mainly used for honorable figures slain in battle.
Khan was delivering a budget speech in parliament, attacking his predecessors’ foreign policies and saying that Pakistan’s partnership with the US in the “war on terror” was a mistake.
Khan also said that Washington used abusive language against Pakistan, blaming Islamabad for its failures in Afghanistan and most of all — refused to tell Islamabad of its operation against bin Laden in 2011 before carrying out the a nighttime raid.
The special operations force swooped into Pakistan’s military garrison town of Abbottabad in the middle of the night on May 2, 2011, killing bin Laden and several of his operatives.
“We sided with the US in the war on terror, but they came here and killed him, martyred him and ... used abusive language against us [and] did not inform us [of the raid], despite the fact that we lost 70,000 people in war on terror,” Khan said.
Washington has repeatedly accused Pakistan of harboring the Afghan Taliban and giving safe haven to the Haqqani network, a Taliban affiliate that has been blamed for some major attacks in Afghanistan and declared a terrorist group by the US.
US Admiral Mike Mullen, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had claimed that the Haqqani network was run by the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence.
Pakistan denied the accusations, saying that Washington was blaming Pakistan for the failure of the US-led coalition’s 150,000 soldiers to defeat the Taliban, who are now at their strongest since being toppled in 2001 and rule or hold sway in about half of Afghanistan.
“The way we supported America in the war on terror and the insults we had to face in return... They blamed us for every failure in Afghanistan. They openly held us responsible because they did not succeed in Afghanistan,” Khan said.
Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were the only countries to recognize the Taliban government, which had harbored bin Laden as he planned terrorist attacks against the US. After the 2001 attacks, Pakistan turned and became an ally of the US against the Taliban, who were ousted by a US-led coalition in November 2011.
Opposition lawmaker Khwaja Mohammed Asif criticized Khan for calling bin Laden a martyr, saying that the al-Qaeda chief had brought terrorism to Pakistan.
“He [bin Laden] ruined my country, but he [Khan] is calling him a martyr,” Asif said.
Khan said that his government has reset the Pakistan-US relationship, elevating it to one of mutual respect, for which he also credited the personal rapport he has built with US President Donald Trump.
“No one insults us now,” Khan said.
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