One year on after Osama bin Laden's death but no changes in Pakistan
Nothing has changed for terror-hit Pakistan as the world marks the first anniversary of Al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden’s killing.
“Pakistan faces the same problems. Terrorists are hitting at will and the US still suspects Pakistan’s role in the war on terror,” an analysts said.
On May 2, 2011, US Navy SEALs killed bin Laden after they raided his compound in Pakistan’s garrison city of Abbottabad.
The killing infuriated Pakistan and it threatened to pull out of the US-led war on terror. Islamabad and Washington are still trying to sort out those differences.
The recent talks between Pakistan and the US failed to bring any good news on the uneasy ties between the two countries.
US Senate Committee on Intelligence chairperson Dianne Berman Feinstein was on Islamabad on Tuesday for talks to improve ties.
Her visit has conspicuous significance as she comes immediately after the visit of US President Bararck Obama’s special representative for the region Marc Grossman to Pakistan. Mr Grossman reportedly failed to mend ties.
In the wake of bin Laden’s killing, the abysmal security situation deteriorated further as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and other al Qaeda off-shoots unleashed a string of coordinated reprisal attacks across the country.
The revenge included some high-profile attacks like ambush on Pakistan Navy’s air base PNS Mehran, and target killing of a Saudi diplomat in Karachi, twin suicide bombing of Frontier Constabulary’s headquarters in Charsadda, and a car suicide bombing of Crime Investigation Department’s police station in Peshawar.
Defence and political experts say that the US leadership was so flabbergasted with the information of a high-value target like OBL in Pakistan that they forgot all norms of diplomacy and all the requirements of a sovereign state.
“The US Navy SEAL’s attack was unlawful and illegitimate. Wisdom failed to guide US arrogance. In international politics, such actions amount to intimidation of other independent states and the reaction might be very perilous,” an Islamabad-based defence expert said.
Fortunately, he said, the Pakistani side kept its cool despite the internal tumult and nothing happened. On the other hand, the US leadership left no stone unturned in converting the crisis into a world-war scenario.
According to one security experts, the American pressure on Pakistan to open a new front against the Haqqani network in North Waziristan Agency could be over whelming.
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