Bin Laden was martyr, Imran Khan tells Pakistan MPs as he lashes out at the US
IMRAN KHAN has caused an outcry after telling Pakistan’s parliament the al-Qa’ida founder Osama bin Laden was a martyr.
The country’s prime minister had been defending his response to the coronavirus pandemic when he veered into controversy addressing what he said was America’s insulting attitude during the war on terrorism.
Mr Khan said: “The Americans came to Abbottabad and killed Osama bin Laden. Martyred him. What happened after that, the whole world abused us. Our ally came here and killed Osama bin Laden without telling us.”
Khawaja Asif, a former foreign minister, immediately accused the prime minister of fiddling with history for declaring a man who was once the world’s most wanted terrorist to be a martyr.
His remarks were also likely to anger Pakistani leaders desperate to reset the country’s reputation as a hotbed of terrorism and extremism.
It was not the first time he had run into trouble discussing Pakistan’s role in the war on terrorism. While still remembered in the UK as a liberal, cricketing playboy, in Pakistan his opponents accused him of taking a soft stance on militants. They even gave him the moniker ‘Taliban Khan’.
Last year, Mr Khan said Pakistan’s army and military spy agency trained al-Qa’ida and maintained links with it afterwards. Turning against the militants to back America after the 9/11 attacks was one
‘Our ally came here and killed Osama bin Laden without telling us’
of his country’s biggest blunders, he said.
Bin Laden was found in hiding in Abbottabad in 2011, although the country’s authorities denied that they knew he was there.
“Imran Khan’s description of Osama bin Laden as a martyr badly undermines Pakistan’s narrative that it no longer supports terrorists,” said Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia Program at the Washington-based Wilson Centre.
“If he just misspoke, one would expect a clarification. I don’t think there’s been one issued yet. It’s not a good look, no matter how you slice it.”
Mr Khan made his comments as a new US terrorism assessment said that although Pakistan had helped America during negotiations with the Taliban, it still hosted militants in safe havens as they waged war in Afghanistan.
The Afghan Taliban and its Haqqani Network faction, as well as groups targeting India including Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad still operate from its territory, the assessment said.
But it drew a testy rebuttal from Islamabad, which rejected “any insinuation about a safe haven”.
“Pakistan will not allow any group or entity to use its territory against any country,” it said.