Islamabad: US Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton on Friday said the information on the Abbottabad raid that
killed Osama bin Laden was kept away from Pakistan because "we
could not afford to loose him again."
Hillary however said the information was also kept within
a small group in the Obama administration.
"We considered such an operation vital to our national
security, that we did not share information in our own
government beyond a very small group of people.
"And that was for obvious reason that it was a sensitive
operation," she said replying to a query on why Pakistan was
not informed about the `Operation Neptune Spear`, initiated by
the US Navy SEALs commandos to snuff out al Qaeda chief bin
Laden on May 2.
She said the US had been searching for the then al Qaeda
chief for over a decade and "we could not afford to loose him
again, the way we lost him in Tora Bora (in December 2001)."
Hillary, who was speaking to a roundtable with Pakistani
television journalists, added, "Therefore we took took action
that was limited in scope as possible."
On the issue of Pak-US relations, she said it was
important to deepen and broaden the cooperation.
PTI
