Cooperation with Pakistan helped lead the United States (US) to the hideout where Osama bin Laden was killed by US forces, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Monday.
The chief US diplomat played up Washington’s cooperation with Islamabad despite doubts she and other US officials have voiced in the past about Pakistani willingness to work with the US to root out Al Qaeda.It was “important to note that our counter-terrorism cooperation over a number of years now with Pakistan contributed greatly to our efforts to dismantle Al Qaeda,” Clinton told reporters.
“In fact, cooperation with Pakistan helped lead us to bin Laden and the compound in which he was hiding,” Clinton said.
Clinton put the emphasis on the common cause made by both the US and Pakistan. “Bin Laden declared war on Pakistan a few years ago,” she said, adding he “was an enemy of the United States and an enemy of Pakistan”. “It was important for us to work as closely as we could with our Pakistani counterparts and it remains so,” Clinton said.
“We’re committed to this partnership, we think it is in the best interest of the security and safety of the United States,” she said.
