Daily Mail:
- Panetta says Pakistan ‘must have had some sense’ Bin Laden was there
- Defence chief unveils intelligence source as Pakistani doctor
By David Baker
Last updated at 6:10 PM on 28th January 2012
Pakistan officials must have known that terror chief Bin Laden was holed up in a remote compound in Abbottabad, claims Pentagon chief Leon Panettta.
The Defence Secretary has publicly hit out at the Pakistani government who he says ‘must have had some sense’ of Osama Bin Laden’s whereabouts.
He said he remains convinced they must have known someone of interest was hiding out in the safe-house in an interview for CBS’s ’60 Minutes’, but added he has no proof.
The explosive interview, to be broadcast tomorrow, also saw Panetta acknowledge for the first time that Pakistani doctor Shakil Afridi had provided key information about the former Al Qaeda frontman’s whereabouts.
Afridi ran a vaccination program for the CIA to collect DNA and verify Bin Laden’s presence in the hideout and Panetta confessed he is ‘very concerned’ for the doctor who has been charged by Pakistan with treason.
Since the May 2 attack on Bin Laden’s compound, last year, Pakistani leaders have continued to deny they had any idea Bin Laden was staying in the city.
This is despite revelations that he had been hiding at the site for as long as five years.
For months the CIA knew of his presence there and spied on him from its own top-secret safe-house next door to the terror leader’s fortified compound, before Navy Seals were sent in.
Some of the Pakistani officials knew where he was, others probably didn’t but the may have known he was in Pakistan. Pakistan is a nation that is split between helping us remain free or fighting to enslave us, if the didn’t have nukes we would have fought them along with Iraq and Afghanistan.