Osama raid: Nawaz calls it attack on Pakistan's sovereignty

Islamabad, May 9: The unilateral operation by US special forces to kill Osama bin Laden was "a major attack on Pakistan's sovereignty", main opposition PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif said today (May 9).

"The Osama incident is a major attack on Pakistan's sovereignty, independence and self-respect," the former premier told reporters in Lahore, referring to the raid by US forces that killed bin Laden in a compound in the garrison city of Abbottabad a week ago.

If action is not taken to stop such incidents in future, Pakistan will face more dangers and risks, he said.

Sharif was speaking to the media for the first time since he returned to the country yesterday after a prolonged stay in London, where he was convalescing after heart surgery.

Pakistani political and religious parties, the legal fraternity and rights groups have criticised the US raid against bin Laden.

Several political leaders, including senior PML-N leader Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan and former Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, have even demanded that President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani should resign for the government's failure to detect the US raid.

Sharif said Pakistan is in a crisis and the political leadership will have to steer the country out of danger.

He said he had convened an urgent meeting of the top leadership of the PML-N in Islamabad tomorrow to review the situation arising out of the US operation against bin Laden.

He referred to the incident of the CIA contractor Raymond Davis, who was arrested in Lahore in January after he killed two Pakistanis, and said such actions had pushed the country towards a crisis.

The people are very concerned about such actions and there is a need to chalk out a strategy to avert similar incidents in future, he said.

Davis was freed in March after over two million dollars was paid to the families of the dead men under a "blood money" deal according to Islamic laws.

In a related development, former Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri, who belongs to the PML-Q, today demanded a detailed inquiry to ascertain how the US military helicopters intruded into Pakistani airspace and conducted a 40-minute operation while the Pakistani radars could not even detect the helicopters.

Kasuri told as news conference in Lahore that Pakistani news channels had immediately reported the crash of a military helicopter involved in the US operation but the Pakistani forces could not take any action.

"There is need for an investigation as the people of Pakistan want answers to many questions about our inability to get information about the US intrusion," he said.

PTI