LASHING OUT

Pakistan: Osama bin Laden Raid “Unauthorized”

Ex-general calls it “a double embarrassment.”

The Pakistani government said Tuesday that the raid that killed Osama bin Laden was an “unauthorized unilateral action” by the U.S. and warned that “such an event shall not serve as a future precedent for any state, including the United States.” The comments came a day after Washington’s Af-Pak envoy, Marc Grossman, met privately with the head of the Pakistani army and the chief of the Inter Service Intelligence, Pakistan’s equivalent to the CIA, and said that Congress is getting wary about Pakistan—a message that underscored how urgent it is that Pakistan show some signs of reform, a U.S. official said. With bin Laden living so close to the capital, Pakistan has faced questions that it is either incompetent or knew of the terrorist’s location—both of which make the military and intelligence community look foolish. “It’s a double embarrassment,” said a retired Pakistani general.