Haqqani defends decision to detain CIA informants

Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States, Husain Haqqani on Sunday defended Pakistan’s decision to detain five informants who aided the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in tracking down Osama bin Laden.

Haqqani was speaking during a media interview.

The ambassador said 30 people had been rounded up in investigations concerning Osama bin Laden’s compound. He said if there are detained CIA informants, they will be dealt with as friendly intelligence service assets and that the issue would be resolved to the satisfaction of Pakistan’s friends and its laws.

Haqqani explained that the government had taken this action to get a better grasp of the details of the Abbottabad raid. He assured that no one was being punished and the authorities are only trying to find out what exactly had happened.
Haqqani claimed that Pakistani intelligence aided the capture and killing of Osama bin Laden. He said both countries are now trying to capture the newly-appointed al Qaeda head, Ayman al-Zawhiri.Last week, the American newspaper the Washington Post had reported that around 35-40 people had been picked up by intelligence agencies across Pakistan for facilitating the CIA for the May 2 US raid that resulted in Osama bin Laden being killed in his Abbottabad villa.

Sources had said that an army major, who lived next doors to bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Maj. Amir Aziz, and four other people, including peasants who till the surrounding agricultural land had not been seen since shortly after the May 2 incident.
The Pakistan Army, however, had later denied that the army major was as a CIA informant.