Pakistan in eye of storm over bin Laden killing

Pakistan's ambassador to the US, Husain Haqqani says inquiry will be conducted into the causes of what happened.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Tuesday faced a violent backlash over Osama bin Laden's killing, fearing revenge attacks and struggling to fend off tough questions over how the al Qaeda mastermind escaped detection so long.

The helicopter raid by dozens of US special forces -- who were operating independently on Pakistani soil -- ended a decade-long manhunt for the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, but Islamabad was kept in the dark.

The United States has again pointed the finger at Pakistan, questioning how he had been able to hide in a fortified compound close to the nation's capital "for an extended period of time".

The allies have clashed repeatedly in the past with Pakistan criticising the US for infringing its sovereign territory on the Afghan border, and Pakistan's top leaders have yet to address their people openly about the bin Laden raid.

US officials are puzzled by the comfortable surroundings of the Abbottabad compound where bin Laden lived, and the fact that his presence in a fortified, upscale building did not attract Pakistani authorities' suspicions.

Pakistan has beefed up security across major cities, diplomatic installations and around the site of the killing in Abbottabad.

More troops were deployed in Islamabad to safeguard government offices and the city's diplomatic enclave, while in Lahore and Karachi, the two biggest cities, extra road blocks and barbed wire were laid around sensitive buildings.

Using a newspaper editorial in the United States, President Asif Ali Zardari sought to defend Pakistan against accusations it did not do enough to track down bin Laden, but avoided comment on alleged intelligence failures.

"Although the events of Sunday were not a joint operation, a decade of cooperation and partnership between the United States and Pakistan led up to the elimination of Osama bin Laden as a continuing threat to the civilised world," Zardari said in The Washington Post.

Pakistan's ambassador to the United States, Husain Haqqani, told AFP: "We will inquire into the causes of what happened but it's really important not to turn it into any allegation of complicity."

Embarrassment over the operation could also spell trouble for the government, which rules a fragile coalition of political parties in a stalemate parliament, and embolden the opposition and religious parties.

The United States has put its embassies on alert and warned citizens of possible reprisal attacks following the shooting at the imposing villa, which American intelligence agencies had been watching since last August.

The US closed two of its consulates on Tuesday until further notice, in the eastern city of Lahore and Peshawar, which is close to the tribal belt that Washington has called the global headquarters of al Qaeda.

Among some Pakistanis there is a feeling of national shame that bin Laden was killed on their soil at all, and even worse so near to Islamabad in a garrison town where he had lived under the noses of the military.

Others welcomed bin Laden's killing as a positive development, not only for Pakistan but for the rest of the world.

"I do not feel sorry if 10 Osamas are killed, but I feel sorry when even one of my (Pakistani) soldiers is martyred," said Arshad Mahmood, 50, a shopkeeper in downtown Islamabad.

In Abbottabad, Pakistani soldiers arrested a peasant and next door neighbour of bin Laden's, the man's relatives and police said.

US envoy Marc Grossman, who was in Islamabad to attend talks with Pakistani and Afghan officials, told reporters that bin Laden's end was "a shared achievement of the three countries."

"This was the end of someone, who was viably working against democratic governments in the region and his acts against civilians made him the enemy, not just of the US but also of Afghanistan and Pakistan," he said.