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Published 11:47 15.08.11
Latest update 11:47 15.08.11 'Pakistan gives China access to top-secret U.S. helicopter from Bin Laden raid'
Financial Times reports that Chinese military engineers were allowed to photograph, take samples from wreckage of U.S. special forces helicopter left behind in raid that killed Osama bin Laden; senior U.S., China, Pakistan officials do not confirm claims.
By Haaretz
Pakistan has allowed the Chinese military to see a U.S. special forces helicopter left behind in the raid which killed Osama bin Laden in May this year, the Financial Times reported on Monday.
Pakistani officials allowed Chinese military engineers to photograph and take samples from the helicopter, which is a piece of advanced, top-secret military technology, the newspaper said.
Local residents gather outside home where al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden was caught and killed in Abbottabad on May 3, 2011.
Photo by: AP
"The U.S. now has information that Pakistan, particularly the ISI, gave access to the Chinese military to the downed helicopter in Abbottabad," the newspaper reported one person in intelligence circles as saying, in reference to the Pakistani spy agency.
The engineers were shown the wreckage and allowed to take photographs of it,
as well as take samples of the "stealth" skin that enabled the American military to enter Pakistan undetected by radar, the Financial Times reported him as saying.
The Al-Qaida leader who masterminded the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, was killed in a raid by U.S Navy Seals on his compound in Abbottabad, just outside Islamabad, in May this year.
The helicopter was destroyed when it crashed into the wall of the compound during the raid, according to the Financial Times.
Although the U.S. military tried to destroy all the wreckage, using both hammer-blows and explosives,
the tail section of the helicopter landed outside the wall of bin Laden’s compound, and remained intact, the Financial Times said.
At the time of the raid, Pakistan, angry that the U.S. acted before they were informed,
had hinted that the Chinese were interested in the helicopter wreckage, the Financial Times said.
However, sources close to the White House and the Central Intelligence Agency told the Financial Times that Pakistan gave the Chinese access to the helicopter, the newspaper reported.
A senior White House official said the situation “doesn't make us happy,” but that there was little the U.S. government could do to respond, according to the report.
"We had explicitly asked the Pakistanis in the immediate aftermath of the raid not to let anyone have access to the damaged remains of the helicopter,"
someone close to the CIA told the Financial Times.
Senior U.S. officials confronted the head of the Pakistan military,General Ashfaq Kayani, about the issue,
but a person with knowledge of the meeting said he denied the claims, according to the newspaper.
A senior Pakistani official also denied it to the Financial Times,
while China, the White House and the CIA declined to comment, the Financial Times reported.
The senior Pakistan government official said it was “hard to say” whether or not the information would have been useful to the Chinese.
“Most of the helicopter was virtually destroyed during the operation,” the Financial Times reported him as saying.
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