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"Did Pakistani Gov’t Know Where Osama bin Laden Was Hiding?"—Democracy Now!'s Amy Goodman speaks with Tariq Ali and Mosharraf Zaidi

Clara Heyworth 2 May 2011

Tariq Ali's opening comments are as follows (from rush transcript):

Amy, what is quite astonishing is that it took them such a long time. The news is that he was in a safe house which is literally next door to the Kakul military academy, one of the most heavily protected areas in the country. And the notion that this was a secret from Pakistan's military intelligence is risible. It's just not believable. I think the fact that he was there, the fact that they knew he was there-so the question that is intriguing me is how this information was got. I don't take at face value-you know, I take at face value what they're saying, that it was a courier they had been tracking. I don't believe that. I think that the information came from within Pakistan's military intelligence. And what was the pressure put to get it from them? I think the Pakistanis were informed that this was going to happen. The Pakistan's leadership was already, with [inaudible], celebrating the event-the Prime Minister Zardari, Karzai in Kabul. So, I think they had been planning it. The timing is a mystery, why they did it exactly at this moment, given that they've known that he was there. So, that's my first reaction.

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