Pak tipped Osama when US troops were near: WikiLeaks

Washington, May 4: US diplomats were told that one of the key reasons why they had failed to find Osama bin Laden for years was that Pakistan's security services tipped him off whenever US troops approached, according to claims made in leaked US government documents obtained by WikiLeaks.

Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) also allegedly smuggled al-Qaeda terrorists through airport security to help them avoid capture and sent a unit into Afghanistan to fight alongside the Taliban, the WikiLeaks cables obtained by Britain's Daily Telegraph show.

The claims, the daily said, will add to questions over Pakistan's capacity to fight the dreaded terror outfit al-Qaeda. In Dec 2009, the government of Tajikistan warned the US that efforts to catch Osama were being thwarted by corrupt Pakistani spies. According to a US diplomatic dispatch, General Abdullo Sadulloevich Nazarov, a senior Tajik counter-terrorism official, told the Americans that "many" inside Pakistan knew where Osama was.

PTI