United States President Barack Obama on Sunday said there was a need to find out the type of support Osama bin Laden had in Pakistan, as he upped pressure on the country to grant access to widows of the slain al Qaeda chief.
In separate interviews, Obama and and his national security adviser Thomas E Donilon demanded the Pakistan grant access to all non-combatant personnel extracted from bin Laden?s compound in Abbottabad.
But even as both of them stepped carefully to not blame the top Pakistani leadership of aiding bin Laden, they said that there did seem to be a support system for its most wanted enemy at some level in the country where the al Qaeda chief was found 60km from its capital.
There must have been ?some sort of support network? for bin Laden inside Pakistan where was able to for years in a high security compound within the garrison town of Abbottabad, said President Obama, in an interview to CBS News.
?We don’t know who or what that support network was. We don’t know whether there might have been some people inside of government, people outside of government,? he said.
But despite the shadow of the Osama episode affecting their ties, Donilon said there was no evidence to infer that Pakistan establishment was aware of Osama bin Laden hiding at Abbottabad before the US killed him in a covert action on May 2.
Donilon said on CNN?s State of the Union: ?I’ve not seen any evidence at least to date that the political, military, or intelligence leadership of Pakistan knew about Osama bin Laden at Abbottabad, Pakistan.”
?I’ve not seen any evidence to indicate that they had foreknowledge of this,? he said.
Osama bin Laden, the 54 year old international terrorist and architect of the 9/11 attack in USA, was killed by the US Navy Seals and CIA operatives in a firefight in his hideout compound in Pakistan’s border city of Abbottabad on May 2. Abbottabad is in close proximity of Islamabad.
Donilon, however, said that Pakistan leaders must answer for the fact ?that Osama bin Laden was in Abbottabad, Pakistan?35 miles from Islamabad?in a town that was essentially seen as a military town…. That needs to be investigated.?
“The Pakistanis need to investigate that. We need to work with them to investigate what’s happened, and how Osama bin Laden came to this place as his home for the last six years,” he said.
Meanwhile, White House is now looking for bin Laden?s deputy Ayman al Zawahiri who has emerged as the top contender for taking over as the chief of al Qaeda, said Donilon, terming the killing of the terror outfit chief ?the most significant achievement? against it.
Pakistan has arrested 25 suspects days after US military operations killed al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in the country?s Abbottabad district, media reports said in Pakistan.
Shuja Pasha, the chief of Pakistan spy agency ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence), was in Washington soon after to explain his country’s position on the presence of Osama before his killing by US Navy Seals.