London, May 10
Former US President George W Bush and Pakistan military leader Pervez Musharraf had struck a secret deal a decade ago allowing an unilateral American operation on Pakistani soil in search of Osama bin Laden similar to the raid that killed the Al-Qaida leader, a media report said.

The deal permitting a US strike in Pakistan if bin Laden was found in that country was struck after he eluded capture and escaped US forces in the mountains of Tora Bora in late 2001, British newspaper The Guardian reported quoting serving and retired Pakistani and US officials.

Under the deal, Pakistan would allow US forces to conduct a unilateral raid on its soil in search of bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri. Afterwards, both sides agreed, Pakistan would vociferously protest the incursion, the paper said.

“There was an agreement between Bush and Musharraf that if we knew where Osama was, we were going to come and get him,” said a former senior US official familiar with the counter-terrorism operations. “The Pakistanis would put up a hue and cry, but they wouldn’t stop us.”

Musharraf, a former President of Pakistan, has denied the existence of any “secret deal’ between him and Bush. “There was never a verbal or written agreement on this(deal). There is no truth to the Guardian article,” he said while rejecting the media report.

Musharraf also left a message on his Facebook page, denying that such an agreement had been signed.

“A senior Pakistani official said it had been struck under Musharraf and renewed by the army during the “transition to democracy” - a six-month period from February 2008 when Musharraf was still president but a civilian government had been elected.

Referring to the killing of bin Laden in Abbottabad compound inside Pakistan, the Pakistani official said: “As far as our American friends are concerned, they have just implemented the agreement.” A former US official quoted by the paper said the Pakistani protests of the past week were the “public face” of the deal. “We knew they would deny this stuff”. The deal puts a new complexion on the political storm triggered by bin Laden's death, with Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani strongly protesting the raid and warning that “Pakistan reserves the right to retaliate with full force”. — PTI 

London, May 10
Believe it or not, now you can also kill Al-Qaida founder Osama bin Laden - but virtually. Thanks to a free online game, people are now being given the chance to take part in the daring US special forces’ raid on bin Laden’s secret hideout a week after he was killed in real life in Abbottabad in Pakistan, ‘The Sun’ reported.

In a quickly drawn up replica of bin Laden's compound, players arrive by Black Hawk just like the US Navy Seals did only seven days ago to finally avenge the deaths of the terror leader’s victims.

Episode 107 of the game, known as KumaWar, was quickly generated to reflect the latest development in the war on terror. In it, a grey-haired bin Laden is hunted by the US elite special forces squad which pumped two bullets into his head and chest last Sunday.

Gamers can lead the elite unit into a virtual version of his guarded hideaway in Abbottabad and claim the kill for themselves. Other episodes of the game have featured the invasion of Afghanistan, the hunt for hanged Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and the search for weapons of mass destruction.

Kuma's CEO Keith Halper told the 'Hollywood Reporter': “We read the same published reports as everyone else, though I suspect with a different eye. Since we've to reproduce events in 3D we care deeply about esoteric details like distances, heights, vegetation, furniture and the like that have to be re-created in the game.” — PTI

Washington: The US today said discussions are underway with Pakistani authorities for getting access to three wives of Osama bin Laden and it is awaiting a response from Islamabad.

Washington's clarification came following conflicting media reports about Pakistan granting such access.

“Discussions are still going on with the Pakistani authorities in this regard. No decision has been made in this regard. The United States is still waiting for a confirmation from Pakistan in this regard,” Pentagon spokesman Dave Lapan said. — PTI 

Tripoli, May 10
A NATO bombing blitz, which the alliance insisted was not aimed at Muammar Gaddafi, rocked Tripoli today as rebels in besieged Misrata claimed to be pushing back the Libyan strongman's forces. The United Nations, meanwhile, said the offensive against pro-democracy protesters launched by Gaddafi’s forces was paralysing the oil-rich nation and causing the population to suffer widespread shortages of essential goods.

Jets screamed in low over the Libyan capital, carrying out an unusually heavy bombardment over roughly three hours, an AFP correspondent said. The blasts came after NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen said time was running out for Libyan leader Gaddafi.

He said Gaddafi “should realise sooner rather than later that there's no future for him or his regime” and would ultimately lose his decades-old grip on power given the “wind of change” sweeping the Arab world, the death of Al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden and mounting pressure on the Taliban in Afghanistan. NATO clarified that its bombing campaign was not specifically targeting Gaddafi. “We do not target individuals,” NATO's deputy spokeswoman Carmen Romero told AFP in Brussels.

She said the bombing raid in Tripoli was part of the alliance’s strategy of destroying Gaddafi’s military machine as long as it threatens civilians, not an escalation of the campaign. “We continue with the same strategy: to reduce the Gaddafi regime's capacity to hit civilians as much as possible,” Romero said. NATO will “continue to attack Libyan command and control centres as well as all facilities that can be used by the Gaddafi army,” she said.

Gaddafi had escaped a similar bombing blitz on May 1 that killed his son and three grandchildren. NATO in an operational update said it had hit three command and control facilities in the vicinity of Tripoli, one in Misrata and ammunition dumps in the vicinity of Mizdah and Sirte, Gaddafi's home town. — AFP