Pakistan prime minister denies his country helped hide terror leader
In a speech to Islamabad's parliament, Mr Gilani also affirmed the government's "full confidence in the military" and spy agency ISI, which are accused of failing to spot bin Laden hiding under their nose.
Speaking live on television, he said: "Allegations of complicity or incompetence are absurd. We emphatically reject such accusations."
His comments came after Pakistan was subject to widespread criticism in the United States and elsewhere following the shooting of Bin Laden in a US raid a week ago.
Blaming "all intelligence agencies of the world" for failing to uncover the terror leader's compound, Mr Gilani reiterated the country's resolve to eliminate terrorism and said an inquiry had been ordered.
"We are determined to get to the bottom of how, when and why about OBL's presence in Abbottabad. An investigation has been ordered," he said, later adding that it would be conducted by a senior general.
"Let me also affirm the government's full confidence in the high command of the Pakistan Armed Forces and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI)," he said.
Mr Gilani also criticised the US raid that caught and killed the al-Qaeda chief, despite an earlier statement that it had been a "great victory" for counterterror efforts.
Bowing to domestic criticism of the US's covert action, he cautioned against unilateral raids on sovereign soil saying they risked "serious consequences."
But addressing fears that Pakistan's relations with its US counterterror ally had sunk to a new low in the wake of the covert raid by US Navy SEALS last week, Mr Gilani said: "Pakistan attaches high importance to its relations with the US.... We have a strategic partnership that we believe is in our mutual interest."
Yesterday, Barack Obama suggested for the first time that people inside the Pakistani government may have helped shield the terrorist.
Politicians in the United States have called for billions of dollars of foreign aid to Pakistan to be suspended.
Meanwhile, Pakistanis have expressed horror at the ability of the United States to mount a raid within their country without notifying the government.
The debacle has been one of the biggest embarrassments ever to Pakistan's powerful military establishment. Opposition leaders have already called for Mr Gilani and Asif Ali Zardari, the president, to resign.
Ahead of Mr Gilani's speech, the main opposition party, the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-Nawaz) demanded a full investigation into the breakdown in Pakistani intelligence and called for the government to take full responsibility for the findings.
"Our party will react very strongly if we come to a conclusion that the speech is nothing but an eyewash," said Siddiqul Farooq, a leader of the party.
"We want a serious probe to fix responsibility for an intelligence failure and objective steps that such negligence is not repeated in future," he said.
The relationship between Pakistan and the United States had already been frayed after a contractor working for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) killed two men and was detained for seven weeks.
Source:Telegraph
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