Pakistan PM: bin Laden was martyred

Critics on Friday slammed Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan for telling Parliament that the US “martyred” al Qaeda kingpin Osama bin Laden.

Bin Laden, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, was killed in 2011 when US special forces raided his hideout in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad, an operation that Pakistan was not told of in advance.

“I will never forget how we Pakistanis were embarrassed when the Americans came into Abbottabad and killed Osama bin Laden, martyred him,” Khan said, the BBC reported.

Pakistan Muslim League senior leader Khawaja Asif took Khan to task.

“Imran Khan called Osama bin Laden shaheed. Bin Laden brought terrorism to our lands, he was a terrorist through and through and he [Khan] calls him shaheed?” Asif said during the National Assembly session, according to reports.

Shaheed is an Arabic term for martyr.

Asif called bin Laden an “ultimate terrorist.”

“He destroyed my nation, and [Khan] is calling him a martyr,” Asif told Parliament.

Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, whose Pakistan Peoples Party was in power when bin Laden was killed, accused the prime minister of appeasing violent extremism, according to the BBC.

And Meena Gabeena, a high-profile Pakistani activist, tweeted: “Muslims all over the world are struggling because of the discrimination they face due to recent terrorism and our PM makes it worse by calling [Osama bin Laden] a martyr of Islam!”