Allegations of support system in Pakistan for Osama bin Laden
Encyclopedia
Allegations of a support system in Pakistan for Osama bin Laden were made been before Osama bin Laden
was found living in a compound
in Abbottabad
, Pakistan
and was killed
by a team of United States Navy SEALs on May 2, 2011.
The compound itself was located just half a mile from Pakistan’s premier military training academy in Abbottabad.
In the aftermath of bin Laden's capture and death, U.S. President Barack Obama
asked Pakistan to investigate the network that sustained bin Laden. He however added that U.S. was not "sure" whether the support network involved anyone in Pakistani Government. In addition to this, in an interview to Time
magazine, CIA Director Leon Panetta
stated that U.S. officials did not alert Pakistani counterparts to the raid because they feared the terrorist leader would be warned.
In a 2005 interview, the then-president Musharraf emphatically denied bin Laden was in Pakistan, stating "One thing is very sure, let me assure you, that we are not going to hide him for a rainy day and then release him to take advantage."
Critics cited the very close proximity (less than a mile) of bin Laden's heavily fortified compound to the Pakistan Military Academy, Pakistan's "West Point", and that the U.S. chose not to notify Pakistani authorities before the operation, and the alleged double standards of Pakistan regarding the perpetrators of the 2008 Mumbai attacks
. U.S. government files leaked by Wikileaks
disclosed that American diplomats were told that Pakistani security services were tipping off bin Laden every time U.S. forces approached. Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence
(ISI) also helped smuggle al Qaeda militants into Afghanistan to fight NATO troops. According to the leaked files, in December 2009, the government of Tajikistan had told U.S. officials that many in Pakistan were aware of bin Laden's whereabouts.
The CIA Director Leon Panetta
stated that Pakistan was "either involved or incompetent."
However, Pakistan's ambassador to the U.S. said both countries "cooperated in making sure" that the operation leading to bin Laden's death was "successful", and that President Obama called and thanked President Zardari for his cooperation. A Pakistani official, speaking anonymously, said "We assisted only in terms of authorization of the helicopter flights in our airspace" and that "we did not want anything to do with such an operation in case something went wrong."
U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman
, Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee
, said "This is going to be a time of real pressure on Pakistan to basically prove to us that they didn’t know that bin Laden was there". John O. Brennan
, Obama's chief counterterrorism advisor, said that it was inconceivable that bin Laden did not have support from within Pakistan. He further stated: "People have been referring to this as hiding in plain sight. We are looking at how he was able to hide out there for so long." Senator Dianne Feinstein
said that "it's hard for me to understand how the Pakistanis ... would not know what was going on inside the compound", and that top Pakistan officials may be "walking both sides of the street." Senator Lindsey Graham
questioned, "How could [bin Laden] be in such a compound without being noticed?", raising suspicions that Pakistan was either uncommitted in the fight against Islamist militants or was actively sheltering them while pledging to fight them. A Pakistani intelligence official said that they had passed on raw phone tap data to U.S. that led to the operation, but had failed to analyze this data themselves. Carl Levin
who is chairman United States Senate Committee on Armed Services
stated that he believes Pakistani officials knew the location of bin Laden and had "no doubt" they also know the location of other senior al-Qaeda operatives. He said Pakistan's intelligence and army have "got a lot of explaining to do," given that bin Laden was holed up in such a large house with surrounding buildings, the fact that its residents took the unusual step of burning their garbage and avoiding any trash collection. He further stated, "It's hard to imagine that the military or police did not have any ideas what was going on inside of that." After the raid, the U.S. asked that Pakistan identify its top intelligence operatives as it tried to establish if any of them had contact with bin Laden in the last few years.
Mosharraf Zaidi
, a leading Pakistani columnist, stated, "It seems deeply improbable that bin Laden could have been where he was killed without the knowledge of some parts of the Pakistani state."
WikiLeaks
had revealed that a US diplomatic dispatch told the Americans that "many" inside Pakistan knew where bin Laden was. The document stated that "In Pakistan, Osama Bin Laden wasn't an invisible man, and many knew his whereabouts in North Waziristan, but whenever security forces attempted a raid on his hideouts, the enemy received warning of their approach from sources in the security forces."
Indian Minister for Home Affairs
P. Chidambaram
said that bin Laden hiding "deep inside" Pakistan was a matter of grave concern for India, and showed that "many of the perpetrators of the Mumbai terror attacks
, including the controllers and the handlers of the terrorists who actually carried out the attack, continue to be sheltered in Pakistan". He called on Pakistan to arrest them.
Gulf News
reported that the compound where bin Laden was killed had previously been used as a safe house
by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence
(ISI), but was no longer being used for this purpose. The Globe and Mail
reported local police saying that the compound belonged to Hizbul Mujahideen
, a militant group supported by ISI which is fighting Indian forces in Kashmir.
denied that his country's security forces may have sheltered Osama bin Laden, and called any supposed support for bin Laden by the Pakistani government "baseless speculation." The Pakistani foreign office issued a statement that "categorically denies" media reports that Pakistan's leadership, "civil as well as military, had any prior knowledge of the U.S. operation against Osama bin Laden."
Pakistan's former president Pervez Musharraf
denied that officials in his country were responsible, calling bin Laden's presence in Pakistan a "blunder".
The head of Pakistan's powerful Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence
(ISI) Lieut. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, the ISI chief, conceded that Osama bin Laden's presence in Pakistan had been an "intelligence failure" but denied the ISI could have had any role in hiding Bin Laden. "If we had shielded Osama bin Laden, why would we have killed and arrested so many al-Qaeda leaders?" he stated "Would we have hidden such a large target in such an exposed area? Without any guards or escape route?"
in 2007 that bin Laden was hiding near Abbottabad, but Musharraf angrily shot down his claim.
: Prime Minister Julia Gillard on May 3, 2011 said bin Laden "absolutely" had a support network in Pakistan.
: Minister for Home Affairs
, P. Chidambaram
said that bin Laden hiding "deep inside" Pakistan was a matter of grave concern for India, and showed that "many of the perpetrators of the Mumbai terror attacks
, including the controllers and the handlers of the terrorists who actually carried out the attack, continue to be sheltered in Pakistan". He also called on Pakistan to arrest them.
: Foreign Minister Alain Juppé
said “I find it a little difficult to imagine that the presence of someone like bin Laden in a big compound in a relatively small town, even if located at 80 km from the center of Islamabad, could go completely unnoticed. [...]Pakistan’s position [...] lacks clarity in our view, I hope that we will have more clarity.”
: According to U.S. documents leaked by Wikileaks
in December 2009, the Government of Tajikistan had warned the U.S. that efforts to apprehend bin Laden were being thwarted by Pakistani intelligence.
: Prime Minister David Cameron
stated that bin Laden must have had a support network in Pakistan. Pakistani-born British
MP
Khalid Mahmood
stated that he was "flabbergasted and shocked" after he learned that bin Laden was living in a city with thousands of Pakistani troops, reviving questions about alleged links between al-Qaeda and elements in Pakistan's security forces.
Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was the founder of the militant Islamist organization Al-Qaeda, the jihadist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets...
was found living in a compound
Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad
Osama bin Laden's compound, known locally as the Waziristan Haveli , is the safe house in which Osama bin Laden was hiding when he was killed. The structure is located at the end of a dirt road in Abbottabad, Pakistan. About 35 Miles north of the capital, Islamibad, and just 0.8 miles southwest of...
in Abbottabad
Abbottabad
Abbottabad is a city located in the Hazara region of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, in Pakistan. The city is situated in the Orash Valley, northeast of the capital Islamabad and east of Peshawar at an altitude of and is the capital of the Abbottabad District...
, Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
and was killed
Death of Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Laden, then head of the Islamist militant group al-Qaeda, was killed in Pakistan on May 2, 2011, shortly after 1 a.m. local time by a United States special forces military unit....
by a team of United States Navy SEALs on May 2, 2011.
The compound itself was located just half a mile from Pakistan’s premier military training academy in Abbottabad.
In the aftermath of bin Laden's capture and death, U.S. President Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
asked Pakistan to investigate the network that sustained bin Laden. He however added that U.S. was not "sure" whether the support network involved anyone in Pakistani Government. In addition to this, in an interview to Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine, CIA Director Leon Panetta
Leon Panetta
Leon Edward Panetta is the 23rd and current United States Secretary of Defense, serving in the administration of President Barack Obama since 2011. Prior to taking office, he served as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency...
stated that U.S. officials did not alert Pakistani counterparts to the raid because they feared the terrorist leader would be warned.
Allegations
Numerous allegations were made that the government of Pakistan shielded bin Laden.In a 2005 interview, the then-president Musharraf emphatically denied bin Laden was in Pakistan, stating "One thing is very sure, let me assure you, that we are not going to hide him for a rainy day and then release him to take advantage."
Critics cited the very close proximity (less than a mile) of bin Laden's heavily fortified compound to the Pakistan Military Academy, Pakistan's "West Point", and that the U.S. chose not to notify Pakistani authorities before the operation, and the alleged double standards of Pakistan regarding the perpetrators of the 2008 Mumbai attacks
2008 Mumbai attacks
The 2008 Mumbai attacks were more than 10 coordinated shooting and bombing attacks across Mumbai, India's largest city, by Islamist attackers who came from Pakistan...
. U.S. government files leaked by Wikileaks
Wikileaks
WikiLeaks is an international self-described not-for-profit organisation that publishes submissions of private, secret, and classified media from anonymous news sources, news leaks, and whistleblowers. Its website, launched in 2006 under The Sunshine Press organisation, claimed a database of more...
disclosed that American diplomats were told that Pakistani security services were tipping off bin Laden every time U.S. forces approached. Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence
Inter-Services Intelligence
The Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence , is Pakistan's premier intelligence agency, responsible for providing critical national security intelligence assessment to the Government of Pakistan...
(ISI) also helped smuggle al Qaeda militants into Afghanistan to fight NATO troops. According to the leaked files, in December 2009, the government of Tajikistan had told U.S. officials that many in Pakistan were aware of bin Laden's whereabouts.
The CIA Director Leon Panetta
Leon Panetta
Leon Edward Panetta is the 23rd and current United States Secretary of Defense, serving in the administration of President Barack Obama since 2011. Prior to taking office, he served as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency...
stated that Pakistan was "either involved or incompetent."
However, Pakistan's ambassador to the U.S. said both countries "cooperated in making sure" that the operation leading to bin Laden's death was "successful", and that President Obama called and thanked President Zardari for his cooperation. A Pakistani official, speaking anonymously, said "We assisted only in terms of authorization of the helicopter flights in our airspace" and that "we did not want anything to do with such an operation in case something went wrong."
U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman
Joe Lieberman
Joseph Isadore "Joe" Lieberman is the senior United States Senator from Connecticut. A former member of the Democratic Party, he was the party's nominee for Vice President in the 2000 election. Currently an independent, he remains closely affiliated with the party.Born in Stamford, Connecticut,...
, Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee
United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
The United States Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs has jurisdiction over matters related to the Department of Homeland Security and other homeland security concerns, as well as the functioning of the government itself, including the National Archives, budget and...
, said "This is going to be a time of real pressure on Pakistan to basically prove to us that they didn’t know that bin Laden was there". John O. Brennan
John O. Brennan
John O. Brennan is chief counterterrorism advisor to U.S. President Barack Obama; officially his title is Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, and Assistant to the President...
, Obama's chief counterterrorism advisor, said that it was inconceivable that bin Laden did not have support from within Pakistan. He further stated: "People have been referring to this as hiding in plain sight. We are looking at how he was able to hide out there for so long." Senator Dianne Feinstein
Dianne Feinstein
Dianne Goldman Berman Feinstein is the senior U.S. Senator from California. A member of the Democratic Party, she has served in the Senate since 1992. She also served as 38th Mayor of San Francisco from 1978 to 1988....
said that "it's hard for me to understand how the Pakistanis ... would not know what was going on inside the compound", and that top Pakistan officials may be "walking both sides of the street." Senator Lindsey Graham
Lindsey Graham
Lindsey Olin Graham is the senior U.S. Senator from South Carolina and a member of the Republican Party. Previously he served as the U.S. Representative for .-Early life, education and career:...
questioned, "How could [bin Laden] be in such a compound without being noticed?", raising suspicions that Pakistan was either uncommitted in the fight against Islamist militants or was actively sheltering them while pledging to fight them. A Pakistani intelligence official said that they had passed on raw phone tap data to U.S. that led to the operation, but had failed to analyze this data themselves. Carl Levin
Carl Levin
Carl Milton Levin is a Jewish-American United States Senator from Michigan, serving since 1979. He is the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Services. He is a member of the Democratic Party....
who is chairman United States Senate Committee on Armed Services
United States Senate Committee on Armed Services
The Committee on Armed Services is a committee of the United States Senate empowered with legislative oversight of the nation's military, including the Department of Defense, military research and development, nuclear energy , benefits for members of the military, the Selective Service System and...
stated that he believes Pakistani officials knew the location of bin Laden and had "no doubt" they also know the location of other senior al-Qaeda operatives. He said Pakistan's intelligence and army have "got a lot of explaining to do," given that bin Laden was holed up in such a large house with surrounding buildings, the fact that its residents took the unusual step of burning their garbage and avoiding any trash collection. He further stated, "It's hard to imagine that the military or police did not have any ideas what was going on inside of that." After the raid, the U.S. asked that Pakistan identify its top intelligence operatives as it tried to establish if any of them had contact with bin Laden in the last few years.
Mosharraf Zaidi
Mosharraf Zaidi
Mosharraf Zaidi is a leading Pakistani columnist, journalist and policy development advisor who writes a weekly column for The News, one of the largest English-language newspapers published in the country. In his capacity as a political expert, he advises governments and international organisations...
, a leading Pakistani columnist, stated, "It seems deeply improbable that bin Laden could have been where he was killed without the knowledge of some parts of the Pakistani state."
WikiLeaks
Wikileaks
WikiLeaks is an international self-described not-for-profit organisation that publishes submissions of private, secret, and classified media from anonymous news sources, news leaks, and whistleblowers. Its website, launched in 2006 under The Sunshine Press organisation, claimed a database of more...
had revealed that a US diplomatic dispatch told the Americans that "many" inside Pakistan knew where bin Laden was. The document stated that "In Pakistan, Osama Bin Laden wasn't an invisible man, and many knew his whereabouts in North Waziristan, but whenever security forces attempted a raid on his hideouts, the enemy received warning of their approach from sources in the security forces."
Indian Minister for Home Affairs
Minister for Home Affairs (India)
The Home Minister, or more properly the Minister for Home Affairs, is a position in the Indian Cabinet, at both State and Union levels. The Home Ministry is one of the most important, powerful and high profile ministry after the Prime Minister...
P. Chidambaram
P. Chidambaram
P. Chidambaram or Chidambaram Palaniappan, sometimes written Palaniappan Chidambaram is an Indian politician with the Indian National Congress and present Union Minister of Home Affairs of the Republic of India. Previously he was the Finance Minister of India from May 2004 to November 2008...
said that bin Laden hiding "deep inside" Pakistan was a matter of grave concern for India, and showed that "many of the perpetrators of the Mumbai terror attacks
2008 Mumbai attacks
The 2008 Mumbai attacks were more than 10 coordinated shooting and bombing attacks across Mumbai, India's largest city, by Islamist attackers who came from Pakistan...
, including the controllers and the handlers of the terrorists who actually carried out the attack, continue to be sheltered in Pakistan". He called on Pakistan to arrest them.
Gulf News
Gulf News
Gulf News is a daily English language newspaper published from Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates with a December 2009 BPA audited circulation of over 117,036 qualified copies...
reported that the compound where bin Laden was killed had previously been used as a safe house
Safe house
In the jargon of law enforcement and intelligence agencies, a safe house is a secure location, suitable for hiding witnesses, agents or other persons perceived as being in danger...
by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence
Inter-Services Intelligence
The Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence , is Pakistan's premier intelligence agency, responsible for providing critical national security intelligence assessment to the Government of Pakistan...
(ISI), but was no longer being used for this purpose. The Globe and Mail
The Globe and Mail
The Globe and Mail is a nationally distributed Canadian newspaper, based in Toronto and printed in six cities across the country. With a weekly readership of approximately 1 million, it is Canada's largest-circulation national newspaper and second-largest daily newspaper after the Toronto Star...
reported local police saying that the compound belonged to Hizbul Mujahideen
Hizbul Mujahideen
Hizbul Mujahideen , founded by Ahsan Dar in 1989, is a Kashmiri militant group active in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir since 1989. Their headquarters are located in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir. It is believed the group al-Badr, derived from Hizbul Mujahideen...
, a militant group supported by ISI which is fighting Indian forces in Kashmir.
Pakistan's rebuttal
Pakistan's president Asif Ali ZardariAsif Ali Zardari
Asif Ali Zardari is the 11th and current President of Pakistan and the Co-Chairman of the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party . He is also the widower of Benazir Bhutto, who served two nonconsecutive terms as Prime Minister....
denied that his country's security forces may have sheltered Osama bin Laden, and called any supposed support for bin Laden by the Pakistani government "baseless speculation." The Pakistani foreign office issued a statement that "categorically denies" media reports that Pakistan's leadership, "civil as well as military, had any prior knowledge of the U.S. operation against Osama bin Laden."
Pakistan's former president Pervez Musharraf
Pervez Musharraf
Pervez Musharraf , is a retired four-star general who served as the 13th Chief of Army Staff and tenth President of Pakistan as well as tenth Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee. Musharraf headed and led an administrative military government from October 1999 till August 2007. He ruled...
denied that officials in his country were responsible, calling bin Laden's presence in Pakistan a "blunder".
Musharraf said instead that there was a possibility that rogue lower-level members of Pakistan's intelligence and military may have had knowledge of bin Laden's location. He conceded they might have known during the last year of his presidency six years ago, and said there ought to be an investigation.
"It's really appalling that he was there and nobody knew. I'm certainly appalled that I didn't know and that intelligence people from that time onward didn't know for 6 years that he was inside. And there is no excuse for this great, massive slip-up. And an investigation is in order and people must be punished for this big lapse."
"As a policy, the army and the ISI fighting terrorism and extremism, al Qaeda, Taliban. But rogue element within is a possibility," he said.
The head of Pakistan's powerful Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence
Inter-Services Intelligence
The Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence , is Pakistan's premier intelligence agency, responsible for providing critical national security intelligence assessment to the Government of Pakistan...
(ISI) Lieut. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, the ISI chief, conceded that Osama bin Laden's presence in Pakistan had been an "intelligence failure" but denied the ISI could have had any role in hiding Bin Laden. "If we had shielded Osama bin Laden, why would we have killed and arrested so many al-Qaeda leaders?" he stated "Would we have hidden such a large target in such an exposed area? Without any guards or escape route?"
Statements from other countries
: Defense ministry spokesman said that ISI must have known that bin Laden was in Abbottabad prior to the U.S. killing him. The former chief of Afghan Intelligence, Amrullah Saleh, said he had told Pervez MusharrafPervez Musharraf
Pervez Musharraf , is a retired four-star general who served as the 13th Chief of Army Staff and tenth President of Pakistan as well as tenth Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee. Musharraf headed and led an administrative military government from October 1999 till August 2007. He ruled...
in 2007 that bin Laden was hiding near Abbottabad, but Musharraf angrily shot down his claim.
: Prime Minister Julia Gillard on May 3, 2011 said bin Laden "absolutely" had a support network in Pakistan.
: Minister for Home Affairs
Minister for Home Affairs (India)
The Home Minister, or more properly the Minister for Home Affairs, is a position in the Indian Cabinet, at both State and Union levels. The Home Ministry is one of the most important, powerful and high profile ministry after the Prime Minister...
, P. Chidambaram
P. Chidambaram
P. Chidambaram or Chidambaram Palaniappan, sometimes written Palaniappan Chidambaram is an Indian politician with the Indian National Congress and present Union Minister of Home Affairs of the Republic of India. Previously he was the Finance Minister of India from May 2004 to November 2008...
said that bin Laden hiding "deep inside" Pakistan was a matter of grave concern for India, and showed that "many of the perpetrators of the Mumbai terror attacks
2008 Mumbai attacks
The 2008 Mumbai attacks were more than 10 coordinated shooting and bombing attacks across Mumbai, India's largest city, by Islamist attackers who came from Pakistan...
, including the controllers and the handlers of the terrorists who actually carried out the attack, continue to be sheltered in Pakistan". He also called on Pakistan to arrest them.
: Foreign Minister Alain Juppé
Alain Juppé
Alain Marie Juppé is a French politician currently serving as the Minister of Foreign Affairs. He also served as Prime Minister of France from 1995 to 1997 under President Jacques Chirac and the Minister of Defence and Veterans Affairs from 2010 to 2011...
said “I find it a little difficult to imagine that the presence of someone like bin Laden in a big compound in a relatively small town, even if located at 80 km from the center of Islamabad, could go completely unnoticed. [...]Pakistan’s position [...] lacks clarity in our view, I hope that we will have more clarity.”
: According to U.S. documents leaked by Wikileaks
Wikileaks
WikiLeaks is an international self-described not-for-profit organisation that publishes submissions of private, secret, and classified media from anonymous news sources, news leaks, and whistleblowers. Its website, launched in 2006 under The Sunshine Press organisation, claimed a database of more...
in December 2009, the Government of Tajikistan had warned the U.S. that efforts to apprehend bin Laden were being thwarted by Pakistani intelligence.
: Prime Minister David Cameron
David Cameron
David William Donald Cameron is the current Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service and Leader of the Conservative Party. Cameron represents Witney as its Member of Parliament ....
stated that bin Laden must have had a support network in Pakistan. Pakistani-born British
British people
The British are citizens of the United Kingdom, of the Isle of Man, any of the Channel Islands, or of any of the British overseas territories, and their descendants...
MP
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
Khalid Mahmood
Khalid Mahmood
Khalid Mahmood is a British Labour Party politician who has been the Member of Parliament for Birmingham Perry Barr since 2001.-Political career:...
stated that he was "flabbergasted and shocked" after he learned that bin Laden was living in a city with thousands of Pakistani troops, reviving questions about alleged links between al-Qaeda and elements in Pakistan's security forces.
Impact on US-Pakistan relations
The US suspended about a third of its $2.7 billion annual defense aid to Pakistan.See also
- Pakistan and state terrorismPakistan and state terrorismPakistan has been accused by neighbours India, Afghanistan, Iran and western nations like the United States, and the United Kingdom of its involvement in terrorist activities in India as well as Afghanistan . Pakistan's tribal region is Branded as a "Haven for Terrorism", it is considered among...
- Pakistan – United States relationsPakistan – United States relationsPakistan – United States relations refers to the bilateral relationship between the Pakistan and the United States. The United States first established diplomatic relations with Pakistan on 20 October 1947. The relationship since then was based primarily on U.S. economic and military assistance to...
- Reactions to the death of Osama bin Laden#Pakistan
- Reactions to the death of Osama bin Laden#Pro-bin Laden rallies