Pakistan’s prime minister fired back Monday after President Donald Trump accused the country of harboring Osama bin Laden despite getting billions of dollars in American aid.
Imran Khan tweeted that Pakistan had suffered 75,000 casualties and lost $123 billion in the “US War on Terror,” despite the fact that no Pakistanis were involved in the Sept. 11 attacks. He said the U.S. has only provided a “miniscule” $20 billion in aid.
U.S. commandos killed bin Laden in a May 2011 raid in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where he had been living in seclusion in a house near a well-known military academy. Pakistan denies it knew bin Laden’s whereabouts prior to the raid, which was carried out without its knowledge. It later arrested Dr. Shakil Afridi, who had run a fake vaccination campaign in Abbottabad to help the CIA confirm bin Laden’s whereabouts.
In an interview with “Fox News Sunday,” Trump said “everybody in Pakistan” knew bin Laden was there and no one said anything despite the U.S. providing $1.3 billion a year in aid. Trump said he had cut off the aid “because they don’t do anything for us, they don’t do a damn thing for us.”
He doubled down in a tweet on Monday, writing: “We paid Pakistan Billions of Dollars & they never told us (bin Laden) was living there. Fools!”
The U.S. and Afghanistan have long accused Pakistan of turning a blind eye to Islamic extremists and of harboring leaders of the Afghan Taliban. Pakistan denies those allegations, pointing to the heavy toll of its war against the Pakistani Taliban, a separate militant group that carries out attacks inside Pakistan.
Khan said Pakistan’s tribal areas along the border have been devastated by years of war, with millions uprooted from their homes.
He also pointed to the logistical support Pakistan has provided for the U.S. war in Afghanistan. The main overland supply route for American forces fighting in Afghanistan runs through Pakistan.
Khan said the U.S. has made Pakistan a “scapegoat” for its failures in Afghanistan, where the Taliban are stronger than at any point since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion.
(AP)
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3 Responses
He should have added that they are harboring and perhaps abetting the Aghani Taliban whose leadership is based in Quetta, Pakistan.
He is right on this but where was he until now????? Has he been asleep?
“despite the fact that no Pakistanis were involved in the Sept. 11 attacks.”
Let’s start with the 1993 World Trade Center bombing where the “brains” behind it came from and escaped to (take a guess and look up “Ramzi Yousef ‘)
Then from Wikipedia we have the following:
> According to interviews by Al-Jazeera as well as United States interrogations of al-Qaeda members Ramzi bin al-Shibh and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (captured in 2002 and 2003 respectively), Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was the instigator and prime organizer of the attacks … Khalid Mohammed had provided funding to his nephew Ramzi Yousef for the World Trade Center bombing in 1993
And guess from which country this “Khalid Shaikh Mohammed” comes.