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Pakistani Prime Minister Addresses bin Laden Death

   VOA News  May 09, 2011

   Pakistan's prime minister is making his first public remarks about the
   U.S. operation that killed Osama bin Laden, sparking outrage among
   leaders and the general public in his country.
   U.S. special forces killed the al-Qaida leader during a raid on a
   compound in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad last week.
   Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani is speaking to the Pakistani
   lawmakers at the parliament in the capital, Islamabad. Earlier Monday,
   he released a statement, saying the government has helped maintain law
   and order and control terrorist activities in Pakistan.

   Gilani's comments come as members of the country's main opposition
   party, led by former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, condemned the U.S.
   operation as a violation of Pakistan's sovereignty.
   Interior Minister Rehman Malik told Arab television station Al-Arabiya
   earlier Monday that Pakistan knew of the U.S. raid 15 minutes after it
   had begun, but did not know it was targeting bin Laden.
   Relations between the United States and Pakistan were already strained
   before the al-Qaida leader's death, following a series of U.S. drone
   attacks against militants in Pakistan's northwest and the detention of
   a CIA contractor who shot and killed two Pakistanis in Lahore in
   January.
   Potentially adding to the strain, Pakistani media last week reported
   what they said was the name of the undercover CIA station chief in
   Islamabad.
   The U.S. embassy declined to comment, and U.S. news agencies said
   Monday the name reported was incorrect. Last year, the CIA pulled its
   then-station chief out of Pakistan after he was named by Pakistani
   media.
   Meanwhile, hundreds of militants in northwest Pakistan held a rally to
   protest the killing of bin Laden.
   Officials say at least 500 followers of militant commander Maulvi Nazir
   and some locals demonstrated in Wana, the main town in the South
   Waziristan tribal area. Officials say the militants threatened to take
   revenge for the al-Qaida leader's death by carrying out attacks against
   Pakistan and the U.S.

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