Pakistan criticizes US raid on bin Laden

Pakistan criticized the American raid that killed Osama bin Laden as an “unauthorized unilateral action,” laying bare the strains the raid has put on an already rocky alliance.

A day after U.S. commandos killed the world’s most wanted man after a 10-year manhunt, new details emerged Tuesday from Pakistan’s powerful intelligence agency and neighbors of bin Laden that raised more questions about whether some elements within the security forces knew, and perhaps protected, the al-Qaida chief.

Neighbors in the city of Abbottabad, a two-hour drive from the Pakistani capital, sensed something was odd about the house where bin Laden and members of his family lived, even though the terror chief and his family rarely ventured outside and most residents were not aware that foreigners were living there.

One man, Sher Mohammed Khan, said his sister went to the house to administer a polio vaccination as part of a government-backed drive. When she remarked on all the expensive SUVs inside the compound, a man immediately asked her to leave, but not before taking the vaccine to apparently administer to the children inside.

“People were skeptical in this neighborhood about this place and these guys,” said Mashood Khan, a 45-year-old farmer. “They used to gossip, say they were smugglers or drug dealers. People would complain that even with such a big house they didn’t invite the poor or distribute charity.’

But not everyone was suspicious.

Khurshid Bibi, in her 70s, said one man living in the compound had given her a lift to the market in the rain. She said her grandchildren played with the kids in the house and the people in the compound gave them rabbits as a gift.