Pakistan defends Bin Laden role

Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari has denied that the killing of Osama Bin Laden in his country is a sign of its failure to tackle terrorism.

In an opinion piece in the Washington Post, Mr Zardari said his country was "perhaps the world's greatest victim of terrorism".

Bin Laden was shot dead by US forces in the Pakistani city of Abbottabad - Pakistan was not involved in the raid.

US officials said Bin Laden must have had a support system in Pakistan.

Bin Laden, 54, was the founder and leader of al-Qaeda. He is believed to have ordered the attacks on New York and Washington on 11 September 2001, as well as a number of other deadly bombings.

He was America's most wanted man but had eluded them for more than a decade.

But US officials say they are "99.9%" sure that the man they shot and killed in a raid on a secure compound in Abbottabad and later buried at sea was Bin Laden.

They said a video had been made of Bin Laden's burial but have not said yet whether it, or any photographs of Bin Laden's body, will be released.
'Enormous price'

The compound in Abbottabad is just a few hundred metres from the Pakistan Military Academy - the country's equivalent of West Point or Sandhurst

White House counter-terrorism chief John Brennan said it was "inconceivable that Bin Laden did not have a support system" in Pakistan.

But in his opinion piece, Mr Zardari said Pakistan had "never been and never will be the hotbed of fanaticism that is often described by the media".

"Such baseless speculation may make exciting cable news, but it doesn't reflect fact," he said.