Pakistani army soldiers keep guard outside the compound where U.S. Navy SEAL commandos reportedly killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad on May 5, 2011.Faisal Mahmoud/ Reuters
After enduring days of embarrassment over the death of Osama bin Laden, Pakistan has seized the diplomatic offensive by questioning the raid's legality and announcing cuts in the number of U.S. military personnel in the country.
Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir became the first senior official to answer questions about the incident when he faced reporters on Thursday afternoon, hunching behind a table filled with microphones and choosing his words carefully.
The UN Security Council has resolved that member states should obey international law while fighting terrorism, Mr. Bashir said, adding that any action that violates sovereignty raises legal and moral issues.
"I'm not saying legal or illegal, but this is a global issue and we need to sort of work it out somehow, in the best interests of international peace and security," he said.
The Foreign Secretary softened his comments by noting that the U.S. Admiral Mike Mullen himself raised the question of sovereignty when he phoned Pakistan's military chief after the raid was over.
Still, Mr. Bashir's criticism was clearly intended to shift debate to a question many Pakistanis are asking - Was the raid legal? - and away from the issue that still preoccupies the rest of the world: Why was Mr. bin Laden living next door to the Pakistani military?
The latter question got only a cursory denial from Mr. Bashir, who repeated oft-quoted statistics about terrorism deaths in his country and reminded his audience that Pakistan fights extremists out of concern for its own self-interest.
The Pakistani government's first indication that Mr. bin Laden was hiding in Abbottabad came when intelligence and security forces rushed to the scene in the aftermath of the raid, he said.
"That is where we found out, indeed from the family of Osama bin Laden, that it was he who had been taken," Mr. Bashir said.
In a separate background briefing for senior Pakistani journalists on Thursday, security and intelligence officials said the eldest wife of Mr. bin Laden told her questioners she'd been living inside the compound since 2005. She claimed to have remained inside the high walls during her entire stay in Abbottabad.
The security officials also emphasized that Pakistan had recently shared intelligence with their U.S. counterparts about Mr. bin Laden, including telephone records and financial information.
Pakistani sources tried to play down the importance of Mr. bin Laden as a target, saying he had been shunted aside in favour of his second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri.
"The [bin Laden]family told us that he didn't have enough money on his person to pay his guards' salaries," a Pakistani security official told reporters.
Despite the efforts to show that Pakistan helped find Mr. bin Laden, the country's powerful security establishment took measures on Thursday to narrow the scope of its co-operation with the United States.
An army statement said Pakistan will reduce the number of U.S. military personnel allowed inside the country to "minimum essential" levels, without elaborating.
Visa squabbles have been a recurring flashpoint in U.S.-Pakistan relations, as the number of U.S. military advisers, contractors, diplomats and intelligence agents swelled in recent years.
Relations between the two countries could have become much worse, the Foreign Secretary hinted, if Pakistan's fighter jets had reached the U.S. helicopter before it slipped across the border with Mr. bin Laden's body. Two Pakistani F-16s took only 15 minutes to reach Abbottabad after being summoned by their commanders, he said, but by that point the Americans had already gotten away.
"It is fortunate that a major tragedy that could have happened was averted," he said.