Two hours after U.S. President Barack Obama announced that Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden had been killed in the Pakistani town of Abbotabad, there was no word from the civilian administration nor the military hierarchy here on what the Americans claimed to have been a “joint operation”.
All that was evident from television crews which rushed to the city in the Hazara region of Khyber Pukhtoonkhwa was that the Bilal Town area - where Osama was said to have been hiding in a mansion - had been cordoned off by security forces and media kept at bay.
While some analysts welcomed the news - describing it a game-changer in the ongoing war on terror - others feared a backlash from terrorist outfits linked to the Al Qaeda network. Given that Pakistan has been facing the blowback effect of its support for the war on terror, the apprehension is that this would increase in days to come in retaliation.
ADVERTISEMENT
The absence of any reaction from Pakistani authorities is attributed to this fear of retaliation. Since Abbotabad is just a two-hour drive from the federal capital and American helicopters took part in the operation, the general perception is that there was no way the Pakistani authorities would not have been involved; more so since the area also houses the Pakistan Military Academy in Kakul.