Jaitley justifies IAF strikes, says if US can kill Bin Laden then why can't India

New Delhi, Feb 27: Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday justified the strikes carried out by the Indian Air Force (IAF) on terrorist camps in Pakistan, citing the killing of former Al-Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden by the United States Navy SEALs.

Osama bin Laden, the founder and first leader of the Islamist group Al-Qaeda, was killed in Pakistan on May 2, 2011, by United States Navy SEALs. The raid on bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, was launched from Afghanistan.

"A week is too long a time for any country. If you look at last 24 hours, one week would appear to be a day. The kind of things we see...I remember when the US Navy SEALs had taken Osama Bin Laden from Abbottabad, then can't we do the same?" Jaitley said while speaking on IAF's pre-emptive strike deep inside Pakistan.

"This used to be just an imagination, a desire, a frustration, a disappointment. But today this is possible," he added.

India had described the IAF's pre-dawn operation on Thursday as "non-military" pre-emptive strike on a terrorist camp.

The IAF's strike on the Jaish camp in Pakistan's restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, about 80-km from the Line of Control (LoC) early Tuesday, killed 325 militants and terror recruits, Indian officials have said. India's action came after 40 Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) soldiers were killed in a suicide attack by an operative of Pakistan-based Jaish in Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama district on February 14, sparking outrage in the country.