Pakistan Air Force (PAF) has begun inquiry into the violation of Pakistan’s airspace by the US Navy SEALs on May 2 when they landed in the garrison city of Abbottabad from helicopters to kill al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden. Earlier, the PAF had constituted a special committee to probe into the incident and announced that an officer of the rank of group captain would head the committee.
According to a security official, the committee is interviewing the personnel who were performing their duty on May 2 to find if they were responsible for any negligence as a result of which the US helicopters were not detected. He said the initial probe showed that the US helicopters had flown from Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar province and they brought several commandos to Abbottabad for a nearly 38-minute operation but the radar system along the border with Afghanistan was functioning normally.
“Our radars did detect the movement of some planes over Jalalabad (the Afghan city close to Pakistani border) a little before the US raid in Abbottabad. According to our information, Pakistani radars had detected six US fighter planes and AWACS aircraft over Jalalabad but they did not enter Pakistani airspace,” he said, adding that perhaps they were flown as a decoy to divert the attention from the intruding helicopters.
“However, all these things are what the inquiry team is looking into and once the probe is completed, the report will be submitted to the air chief’s office,” the official said.
