US presses Pakistan on Bin Laden
The White House has called on Pakistan to investigate the network that
sustained Osama Bin Laden in his secret compound where he was killed last week.
But National Security Adviser Tom Donilon told NBC TV he had not seen any proof
that the government in Islamabad knew the al-Qaeda leader's whereabouts.
Mr Donilon also said the US wanted to speak to Bin Laden's three widows, who
are in Pakistani custody.
Pakistan has denied knowing Bin Laden was holed up in Abbottabad.
But Mr Donilon said Islamabad needed to establish how the al-Qaeda leader had
lived for six years a short drive from the capital and right next to a military
academy.
'Ridiculous'
"There was some support network in Abbottabad, Pakistan, with the support of
Bin Laden," Mr Donilon told NBC's Sunday talk show Meet The Press.
"We haven't seen evidence that the government knew about that. But they need to
investigate that."
Continue reading the main story
"Start Quote
Are we not on a slippery slope to say that the whole world is a
battlefield?"
End Quote Christof Heyns UN rapporteur on extrajudicial executions
* Was Bin Laden killing legal?
Three of Bin Laden's wives and 13 children were removed from the house
following the US commando raid, which killed the al-Qaeda leader, one of his
sons and three others.
Mr Donilon said the Pakistani authorities "need to provide us with
intelligence... from the compound that they've gathered, including access to
Osama Bin Laden's three wives".
The US has been poring over computer files seized by American special forces
from the hideout.
"It's [the intelligence cache] about the size, the CIA tells us, of a small
college library," said Mr Donilon.
On Saturday, the Pentagon released five home videos found among the material
featuring Bin Laden, with the audio removed.
It included a video message by the al-Qaeda leader to the US and footage of Bin
Laden watching an item about himself on TV.
US officials said the Abbottabad hideout was a command and control centre from
where Bin Laden had actively led al-Qaeda.
But an unidentified senior Pakistani intelligence official told Reuters news
agency on Sunday: "It sounds ridiculous. It doesn't sound like he was running a
terror network."
There have been suspicions that someone in Pakistan's Inter-Services
Intelligence (ISI) spy agency, which has a long history of contacts with
militant groups, may have known where Bin Laden was hiding.
But Pakistan has dismissed such suggestions.
Meanwhile, a senior United Nations official called on the White House to
disclose what orders were given to the US Navy Seals who went into the al-Qaeda
chief's compound.
UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions Christof Heyns told the BBC
the killing could set a precedent where any country could cross borders to
pursue enemies "where there is in practical terms no option to capture".
"And are we not then on a slippery slope to say that the whole world is a
battlefield?"
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