Pakistan asks US to share intel on Al-Qaeda chief Zawahiri

AGENCE FRANCE PRESSE

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s foreign minister today said that if the US has intelligence about the presence of Al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri in Pakistan, then it should share the information with Islamabad.

Hina Rabbani Khar told reporters shortly after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton used a visit to India to say that Washington believes Zawahiri is hiding in Pakistan.

“If somebody has proof, it should be shared with us so that we can look into the matter,” said Khar.

Pakistan has no information about Zawahiri’s being in the country, she added.

In Kolkata, Clinton said Zawahiri, who took over the leadership after US troops killed Osama bin Laden in Pakistan last year, “is somewhere, we believe, in Pakistan”, as she pledged to keep up pressure on Islamabad to arrest Islamist militants.

The Egyptian cleric was second-in-command under bin Laden and was regarded by US intelligence agencies as chief ideologue for the militant group.

Pakistani-US relations have been riddled with crisis since the American raid killed bin Laden last May and American air strikes killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in November. Islamabad has closed NATO supply lines through Pakistan into Afghanistan for five months.

Clinton said the United States would press for the arrest of the founder of Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) who is wanted over the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

The United States last month offered a $10 million reward for information leading to the conviction of Hafiz Saeed, who lives openly in Pakistan and is considered a mastermind of the assault in India that killed 166 people.

Pakistan has questioned the basis of the bounty. It released Saeed from house arrest in 2009 and in 2010 the Supreme Court upheld his release on the grounds of insufficient evidence.