The military and the Foreign Office have dismissed The New York Times article that claimed some Pakistani officials had knowledge of Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts leading up to the May 2, 2011 attack.
Director General of Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Maj-Gen Asim Bajwa termed the allegations made in the article as “baseless” and “ridiculous” in a tweet.
Later, the Foreign Office spokesperson, during her weekly briefing, reiterated Maj Gen Bajwa’s comments on the story to term it as unfounded and baseless.
Earlier in the day, former Pakistan Air Force chief Rao Qamar Suleman said that the facts in The New York Times article ‘What Pakistan Knew About Bin Laden‘ were distorted.
Pakistani intelligence officials had also rebuffed the NYT story. “It is a totally baseless story. There is no truth in it,” one official had said. “Nobody in Pakistan knew about Osama bin Laden’s presence.”
According to the article, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) Chief Lt Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha knew where the late al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was hiding.
The newspaper quoted a Pakistani official as saying that the US had direct evidence about the ISI chief knowing Bin Laden’s whereabouts at the time. “He knew of Osama’s whereabouts, yes,” the official said.