Relations between the US and Pakistan came under new strain as Washington officials said they feared that Islamabad would have warned Osama bin Laden of the US operation that killed the al-Qaeda leader.
As Pakistani officials contested accusations on Capitol Hill and elsewhere that they must have known about bin Laden’s hiding place near a prestigious military academy, the US laid bare its mistrust of Islamabad, which was not informed in advance of Sunday’s raid on the compound in Abbottabad.
“It was decided that any effort to work with the Pakistanis could jeopardise the mission,” Leon Panetta, CIA director, said in an interview with Time magazine. “They might alert the targets.”