Islamabad: Pakistan on Thursday warned of ‘disastrous consequences’ of any further raid inside its territory like that of Abbottabad operation, wherein US special forces killed al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden.
Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir said on Thursday that any country that again seeks to raid its territory would face consequences from Pakistan’s military.
“We feel that that sort of misadventure or miscalculation would result in a terrible catastrophe,” he said. “There should be no doubt Pakistan has adequate capacity to ensure its own defence.”
He was speaking three days after a US raid by special forces, without the knowledge of Pakistan officials, on a compound in Abbottabad, that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
Reiterating the statement made by PM Yousaf Gilani in Paris, Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir said if an intelligence failure had resulted in a decade-long hunt for most wanted terrorist Bin Laden, the blame was to be shared by spy agencies all over the world.
Bashir responded to media critique of the Pakistan military and intelligence agencies by saying that the criticism is unwarranted and cannot be validated.
“This has been played out all wrong in the media domain…we have a lot of work to do to change this,” said Bashir.
Bashir responded to allegations that the intelligence agencies failed to detect US helicopters in Pakistani airspace by saying that Pakistan has “adequate capacity” to protect itself and that the CIA-led operation was covert.
“The helicopters managed to evade our radars. The first information we received was when a helicopter crashed. Then we immediately reacted,” he said.
He said that as soon as the operation was over, at around 3am Admiral Mike Mullen informed them about the operation that has taken place. He also added that it was the US that pointed out the aspect of sovereignty, “as the Americans are equally
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