Daily Times

Sir: Finally, Osama bin Laden was found hiding in our own backyard. And guess what? We did not find him, the US did. The entire nation is appalled by this failure on the part of our intelligence. Or, could it be that there was connivance between Osama and our intelligence agencies? There are, however, some misconceptions about the location where Osama was found. It was not in a cantonment area as is being announced in the media. The house is located in Hashmi Town, which is in close proximity to our military academy in Kakul, but it is not in the cantonment area itself.

The other misconception is that the US violated our sovereignty. They did not. They were well within international norms to take out the world’s most wanted terrorist on our soil when we could not take him out or capture him ourselves. When they found out that he was on our soil, with the support of some elements in our midst, they carried out the operation. They did not inform us because they knew that their plan would get leaked out and present him with the opportunity to escape. Now they are doubly sure that either we were harbouring him or it was an intelligence failure on our part. Both ways, it has put our country in the dock.

We are now on a very weak wicket, and it is high time that those at the helm of affairs come out openly and tell the public what our game really is. We are being accused of being ‘snakes up the sleeves’ of our allies due to our links with some militant outfits and the rest of the world has declared us terrorists. Neither we nor the Americans can afford to continue playing a double game as now the cat is out of the bag and everything is out in the open.

KIRAN KHAN

Lahore