Opinion

Bin Laden buried in sea of question marks

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2011-05-07 20:26

Time to leave afghanistan?

In what might be an unintended consequence, the slaying of bin Laden has also stirred up widespread skepticism about the US and NATO military presence in Afghanistan.

As the No. 1 suspect of the world-shocking 9/11 terror attacks on the United States, bin Laden was the primary target in the 2001 US-led invasion of the Central Asian country, where he had been believed to be hiding under the umbrella of the then ruling Taliban regime.

"Now that bin Laden is dead and al-Qaida is scattered around the globe, does it really make sense to keep using over 100,000 US troops to occupy Afghanistan? I don't think so," US Representative Jim McGovern said Thursday on Capitol Hill, echoing similar views from other lawmakers.

Calls for a US withdrawal from Afghanistan have also been heard from abroad. Iranian Foreign Minister Ali-Akbar Salehi said Tuesday that since Washington has confirmed bin Laden's demise, the United States now has no more excuse to remain in the region.

In Afghanistan, although many officials and scholars agree that killing bin Laden does not mean putting the last nail to al-Qaida's coffin, President Hamid Karzai has stressed that the bin Laden case shows that the international community should focus on terrorist safe havens outside Afghanistan.

"The death of Osama in Pakistan has proved the accuracy of our claim that terrorists centers are outside Afghanistan ... Once again I am calling on NATO that war against terrorists should not be continued in Afghan villages," he said.

However, the Obama administration, which planned to begin scaling down US forces in July and hand over security responsibilities to the Afghans by 2014, has stressed that bin Laden's death would have no bearing on the US strategy in Afghanistan.

"The July 2011 transition date for the beginning of a drawdown remains very much in place. The pace of that drawdown will be determined by conditions on the ground," said Carney, the White House spokesman.

Professor Mustafa Saif at Cairo University told Xinhua that even if bin Laden's demise might accelerate the US drawdown, Washington would retain some troops in the country, given the fact that post-bin Laden Afghanistan still faces formidable security challenges.

Cooperation with pakistan undermined?

The killing of bin Laden has also put into question US future counterterrorism cooperation with Pakistan, which has accused Washington of violating its sovereignty by launching a unilateral operation on its soil.

The Pakistani Foreign Ministry on Tuesday expressed deep concerns and reservations over the US raid, which it said was carried out "without prior information or authorization from the government of Pakistan."

The Pakistani military threatened Thursday that it would reconsider its counterterrorism cooperation with the United States should Washington launch another unilateral attack like the one that killed bin Laden.

In the United States, meanwhile, some lawmakers and analysts are asking how bin Laden could live in a compound near an elite military academy outside the Pakistani capital for years without being detected. They have also proposed to suspend US aid to Pakistan.

Pakistani officials have rejected the US criticism.

Pakistani Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir has denied that the Pakistani military or the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) Directorate had aided al-Qaida. "The critique of the ISI is not only unwarranted, it cannot be validated," he said Thursday.

A Pakistani military official admitted "shortcomings in developing intelligence" on the presence of bin Laden in Pakistan and said an order has been given to have an investigation into the failure to detect the world's most wanted man in its own backyard.

Speaking to Xinhua on condition of anonymity, the official also stressed that Pakistani military intelligence has made unparalleled achievements in the fight against al-Qaida and its branches.

The official said that it was based on the preliminary information provided by the Pakistani side that the United States successfully located bin Laden.

According to US press reports, even officials of the Obama administration admitted that Pakistani intelligence agents found the vehicle of a courier of bin Laden, which led US agents to the compound where bin Laden was hiding.

Seeking to close what appears to be a serious rift between the two countries, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Thursday that Washington is still anxious to keep its cooperative relationship with Islamabad.

"It is not always an easy relationship. But, on the other hand, it is a productive one for both our countries. And we are going to continue to cooperate between our governments, our militaries, our law enforcement agencies," said Clinton.

US Senator Lindsey Graham said Washington should continue to have good relations with both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"It would be a huge mistake and a catastrophic blunder to think that the killing of Osama bin Laden ends our need to help Iraq or Afghanistan," said Graham. "What we ought to do is pour it on now. We've got momentum."