Pakistan made deal for US to hunt Osama

Calcutta News.Net
Wednesday 2nd July, 2008

It has been reported that President Pervez Musharraf granted the US the right to launch attacks on Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, without prior permission from Islamabad.

According to the Washington Post, the agreement, which was made soon after Pakistan joined the US-led war on terror, still stands.

The U.S. has options for sending special operations teams into Pakistan if bin Laden's exact location is determined, but military officials said it would be a flying drone, not boots on the ground, that would be dispatched to kill the al Qaeda leader.

The drone could be airborne, or redirected in flight, in a matter of minutes.

By not requesting Pakistan's approval first, the U.S. would avoid the risk of breaching operational security.

Washington still harbours suspicions about Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence agency, which helped establish pro-al Qaeda Taliban rule in Afghanistan.

The fact that Osama continue to evade arrest even after seven years, has put renewed focus on the Pakistani government's restraints on US efforts to find bin Laden, as Pakistan prohibits American military ground forces on its soil.

According to the Post, Pakistan allowed the CIA to secretly launch missile-equipped Predators from its soil into Afghanistan during the war to oust the Taliban, and it has continued to let the agency fly the unmanned surveillance planes over Pakistan.

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