'Pak Govt. demolished Osama's house because it was monument to their ineptitude'

Islamabad, Feb 27 (ANI): A retired Pakistani General and Security analyst has said that the government demolished Osama bin Laden's Abbottabad compound to stop people from raising a shrine there in support of the killed al-Qaeda leader.

The Christian Science Monitor quoted Talat Masood, as saying that the government wanted to remove the building which stood as a monument to their ineptitude.

"I think the primary purpose is to remove all traces of Osama's presence for several years in Abbottabad. People could raise a [shrine] and eulogize him, embarrassing Pakistan and glorifying militancy and radicalism in Pakistan."

"The second factor... is it's a constant reminder of the failure of the intelligence services not to have detected him and the fact that the Americans launched a major offensive, and the [military] were unprepared on the Western borders," he added.

Residents said that police and soldiers cordoned off the entire Bilal Town neighborhood on Saturday night, preventing people from entering or leaving, and then moved in with cranes to pull the house apart.

""We believed the army would use explosives to blow up the building but it wasn't the case," a resident said.

The Pakistan military was criticised both at home and abroad after the May 2 raid, when the SEALs stormed the house and shot bin Laden in the head. The Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, Lieutenant General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, in particular, faced sharp scrutiny after it emerged that the mastermind of the 9/11 terror attacks had been hiding within a few hundred yards of the Pakistan Military Academy.

Last October, Pasha had told the official inquiry team that his spies were unaware of bin Laden's presence in Abbottabad.

In Washington on Sunday, American officials said Pakistan's move came as a surprise for them.

"The Pakistanis have been saying for a while that they wanted to do this, but the timing came as a complete surprise. The Pakistanis really don't want to have all this attention around it," he added. (ANI)