Pakistan will not share rotorcraft ‘secrets’ with China, US assured
Pakistan said on Wednesday it would not share the wreckage of a US helicopter used in the raid that killed Osama bin Laden with China, after speculations to this effect emerged.
“Pakistan is not going to share any technology, and I don’t think our friends in China have shown any interest in doing so,” Pakistan’s ambassador to the US Husain Haqqani told CNN.
Photographs of the wreckage of the helicopter, which malfunctioned during the raid and was deliberately blown up, fuelled speculations that it was a much-modified version of an existing helicopter with new features added to reduce noise and evade radar detection.
Some even postulated that the helicopter, which officials said was a Blackhawk, was actually an entirely new kind of “stealth” rotorcraft, with highly-classified technology which could fall into the hands of Pakistan’s ally China.
Defence analysts, however, have said that although the helicopter appears to be a modified Blackhawk, the technology in question is not shrouded in secrecy, and Pakistan and China would gain little from the remains.
Haqqani insisted, however, that the US and Pakistan were “in close contact” and were trying to “get to the bottom of things.”
“The US and Pakistan, at the government-to-government level, the intelligence-to-intelligence level and military-to-military level, are in close contact,” he told CNN.
“We are not in the business of denial or contradiction right now. We are trying to get to the bottom of things, understand the intelligence and work together,” he added.
“At the same time, we continue to be concerned about unilateral actions and would prefer if the US works with Pakistan instead of making Pakistan look like the bad guy.”
Meanwhile a US officials on Wednesday said that the treasure trove of intel obtained in the raid that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden included a handwritten journal containing his “operational ideas”.
Agents are studying the notebook for information on future al Qaeda plots, but the official described it as “just one of many things” found along with computers, hard drives, DVDs, flash drives and recording devices.
There were no “warm and fuzzy” personal or emotional passages, he told AFP. It was “more just jotting down some ideas. It doesn’t entail where he’s been or what he’s done.”
Published in The Express Tribune, May 13th, 2011.
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