U.S. President Donald Trump addresses the 72nd United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York, U.S., September 19, 2017. (Photo: Reuters)
President Donald Trump said early Monday morning on New Year’s Day that the United States (US) will no longer give foreign aid to Pakistan, tweeting “they have given us nothing but lies & deceit.”
“The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools,” President Trump tweeted. “They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!”
The United States has foolishly given Pakistan more than 33 billion dollars in aid over the last 15 years, and they have given us nothing but lies & deceit, thinking of our leaders as fools. They give safe haven to the terrorists we hunt in Afghanistan, with little help. No more!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 1, 2018
U.S. officials and foreign policy analysts have long accused Pakistan of offering terrorists a support system, even before Osama bin Laden was found living in a compound in Abbottabad. He was killed by a team of U.S. Navy SEALs on May 2, 2011 at a compound located just half a mile from Pakistan’s premier military training academy Kakul Military Academy (PMA) in Abbottabad.
It’s the equivalent of West Point in the U.S., and it’s inconceivable to U.S. officials that the renowned Pakistani intelligence service would not have known he was there. As a result, the Obama Administration chose not to alert the Pakistani government of the operation that finally resulted in his death.
“It was decided that any effort to work with the Pakistanis could jeopardize the mission,” former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta said. “They might alert the targets.”
Documents leaked by Wikileaks revealed American diplomats were told that Pakistani security services were tipping off bin Laden each time U.S. forces approached his location. Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) also helped smuggle al-Qaeda militants into Afghanistan to fight NATO troops. According to the leaked cables, in December 2009 the government of Tajikistan had told U.S. officials that many in Pakistan were aware of bin Laden’s whereabouts.
A police report dated January 17, 2012 shows bin Laden’s youngest wife Amal Ahmad Abdul Fatah said that except for the 8 or 9 months just after the terror attacks on September 11, 2001 he moved from home to home in Peshawar, Swat and Haripur, Pakistan before settling in Abbottabad.
He remained there for the last 6 years of his life.
“It is inconceivable that bin Laden did not have support system in the country that allowed him to remain there for extended period of time,” then-chief counterterrorism advisor John Brennan said.
Husain Haqqani, the former Pakistan Ambassador to the U.S., who once said both countries “cooperated in making sure” that the operation leading to his death was “successful,” admitted that Osama bin laden indeed had a support system in Pakistan. However, he claimed that the Pakistani government wasn’t privy to it.
In October 2011, former Pakistani Army Chief General Ziauddin Butt stated that bin Laden was kept in an Intelligence Bureau safe house in Abbottabad by the then Director-General of the Intelligence Bureau of Pakistan (2004–2008), Brigadier Ijaz Shah. He further asserted that it occurred with the “full knowledge” of General Pervez Musharraf, the former president.
In August, President Trump said “the next pillar” of his new strategy to combat Islamic extremism involved a “change in our approach to Pakistan.” The Trump Administration during the summer already withheld roughly $50 million in military aid to Pakistan in response to their lack of action against the Haqqani Network and the Taliban.
