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No proof of al-Qaeda meeting
22/01/2006 20:54 - (SA)
Washington - There is no evidence of al-Qaeda presence in the village where about 18 people died after a US missile strike, Pakistan's Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said on Sunday.
Aziz also told CNN's Late Edition programme that US authorities had not informed his government in advance of the January 13 CIA Predator drone attack on the remote Pakistani village of Damadola in the Bajur tribal region near the Afghan border.
Aziz said at least 13 civilians died in the attack, in which the United States reportedly targeted a meeting it believed would include Ayman al-Zawahiri, the second highest leader of
al-Qaeda.
"There is no evidence ... that there were any other people there," Aziz said. "We have not found one body, or one shred of evidence that these people were there."
"These people don't get together for dinner," Aziz said, speaking of al-Qaeda. "We don't know who was there." Protests
The attack sparked thousands of Pakistanis to join protests last week against the US violation of Pakistani sovereignty and the Pakistan government's alleged support for such attacks.
But Aziz, who was in Washington for meetings with US leaders, denied that his government backed the strike.
"No, this was not co-ordinated", Aziz said, criticizing the United States' failure to inform his government in advance. "We had no idea that this would take place."
Aziz meanwhile said that no one knows the whereabouts of
al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, whom many US officials have said they believe is hiding out in the rugged, remote tribal areas of northern and western Pakistan adjacent to Afghanistan.
"We and the rest of the world have no clue where he or his associates are," Aziz said. "He could be anywhere in the region or even outside the region."
"If anybody knew where he is, or where he moves around, we would all go after him," he said.
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