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Pakistan PM Imran Khan calls Osama Bin Laden a 'martyr' in Parliament

WION Web Team
ISLAMABADUpdated: Jun 25, 2020, 07:42 PM IST
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File photo: Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan. Photograph:(Reuters)

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Osama bin Laden was killed in a military operation by US Navy Seals in 2011 at the garrison town Abbottabad.

Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan on Wednesday called the 9/11 mastermind and founder of the terrorist organization al-Qaeda Osama bin Laden a ‘shaheed’ (martyr) while speaking in the country’s Parliament.

In his speech at the parliament, he said, "We were very embarrassed when Americans came and killed Osama bin Laden at Abbottabad and martyred him."

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Osama bin Laden was killed in a military operation by US Navy Seals in 2011 at the garrison town Abbottabad. He was accused of engineering a number of terror attacks worldwide, particularly targeting the American installations including the 9/11 incident of 2001 when close to 3,000 people lost their lives when five planes were hijacked to target US cities.

Meanwhile, a US government report on Wednesday blamed Pakistan for continuing to serve as a safe haven for terrorist groups and allowing outfits including the Lashkar-e-Tayyiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed to operate from its territory.

The plenary meeting of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has decided to keep Pakistan on the terror "grey list".

Pakistan will reportedly continue to be in the grey list till February 2021, even if it completes all its action plan items by October 2020, reports said. ANI sources said that a FATF team would have to confirm completion of Action Plan with an on-site visit before it can put Pakistan out of the "grey list".

Blacklisting by the Paris-based financial action task force will be a big blow for Pakistan's economic reform programme leading to severe economic sanctions with the country already under strain due to the coronavirus pandemic.

(With input from agencies)