A senior Pakistani official has said that a deal had been struck under former president Pervez Musharraf and renewed by the army during the “transition to democracy” – a six-month period from February 2008 when Musharraf was still president but a civilian government had been elected – permitting a US operation against on Pakistani soil similar to last week’s raid that killed the al Qaeda leader, British newspaper The Guardian said in a report on its website.
The report said the deal was struck between and former US president after bin Laden escaped US forces in the mountains of Tora Bora in late 2001, according to serving and retired Pakistani and US officials. Under its terms, Pakistan would allow US forces to conduct a unilateral raid inside Pakistan in search of bin Laden, his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and the al Qaeda Number 3, said the report.
Afterwards, both sides agreed, Pakistan would vociferously protest the incursion, it added. A former US official told the Guardian that the Pakistani protests of the past week were the “public face” of the deal. “We knew they would deny this stuff,” he was quoted as saying. Online news agency, however, reported that Fawad Chaudhry, spokesman for Musharraf’s new party, categorically denied that the former president had signed any such deal.
He said that Musharraf rejected Guardian’s report, saying that the agreement should be presented in parliament if it existed and that the “accusation” was baseless. He said the subject had never been discussed between him and Bush. Musharraf said agreements were signed between states, not individuals, at the international level and if there were any understandings or agreements on terrorism, they were in accordance with the agreed principles of the United Nations.
