By Matt Spetalnick and Kamran Haider
WASHINGTON/ABBOTTABAD, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistan's president on Tuesday denied suggestions that his government may have sheltered Osama bin Laden but admitted his security forces were left out of a U.S. raid to kill the al Qaeda chief.
U.S. officials kept Pakistani authorities in the dark out of concern that they might "alert the targets" and jeopardize the special forces assault on Monday that ended a long manhunt for bin Laden, CIA Director Leon Panetta told Time magazine.
The revelation that bin Laden had holed up in a fortified compound in the military garrison town of Abbottabad, possibly for five to six years, prompted many U.S. lawmakers to demand a review of the billions of dollars in aid Washington gives to nuclear-armed Pakistan.
Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, issuing his first response to questions about how the world's most-wanted militant was able to live undetected for so long near Islamabad, did little to dispel suspicions.
"Some in the U.S. press have suggested that Pakistan lacked vitality in its pursuit of terrorism, or worse yet that we were disingenuous and actually protected the terrorists we claimed to be pursuing," Zardari wrote in an opinion piece in the Washington Post. "Such baseless speculation may make exciting cable news, but it doesn't reflect fact."
It was the first substantive public comment by any Pakistani leader on the airborne raid that killed the al Qaeda leader, who had become the face of Islamist militancy since masterminding the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
Pakistan has come under enormous international scrutiny since bin Laden was killed, with questions over whether its military and intelligence agencies were too incompetent to catch him, or knew all along where he was hiding and even whether they had been complicit.
Reflecting a U.S.-Pakistani counterterrorism alliance strained by years of mistrust, Islamabad was kept in the dark about the raid until after all U.S. aircraft were out of Pakistani airspace.
At the same time, taking out bin Laden -- who became the epitome of evil for many Americans as architect of the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington -- has given U.S. President Barack Obama a popularity boost at home where his standing had been eroded by economic woes and high gasoline prices.
Thirty-nine percent of Americans told a Reuters/Ipsos online poll that their views of the president's leadership skills have improved and 42 percent said they now had a higher opinion of Obama's handling of the war on terrorism.
But he may also face more pressure to speed the planned withdrawal this July of some U.S. forces from the unpopular war in Afghanistan.
PAKISTAN EXPRESSES "DEEP CONCERNS"
Pakistan, which for years has said it did not know bin Laden's whereabouts, denied any prior knowledge of the U.S. raid but said it had been sharing information about the targeted compound with the CIA since 2009.
While Islamabad hailed the killing of bin Laden as an important milestone in the fight against terrorism, Pakistan's foreign ministry said it had expressed "deep concerns" that the operation was carried out without informing it in advance.
"He was not anywhere we had anticipated he would be, but now he is gone," Zardari wrote, without offering further defence against accusations his security services should have known where bin Laden was hiding.
"Although the events of Sunday were not a joint operation, a decade of cooperation and partnership between the United States and Pakistan led up to the elimination of Osama bin Laden as a continuing threat to the civilized world."
Facing pressure to produce visual confirmation of bin Laden demise, White House counterterrorism chief John Brennan said the United States was considering releasing photos and video taken during the raid as proof that bin Laden was dead, but would only do so in a "thoughtful manner."
The Afghan Taliban challenged the truth of bin Laden's death, saying Washington had not provided "acceptable evidence to back up their claim" that he had been killed.
Another U.S. official said photos of bin Laden's burial at sea may be released on Tuesday but no decision has been made. Washington was also weighing release of a photo of his body.
IRATE U.S. LAWMAKERS
With bin Laden's death putting the spotlight on Pakistan, irate U.S. lawmakers earlier asked how it was possible for him to live in a populated area near a military training academy without anyone in authority knowing about it.
They said it was time to review aid to Pakistan. The U.S. Congress has approved $20 billion (12 billion pounds) for Pakistan in direct aid and military reimbursements partly to help Islamabad fight militancy since al Qaeda's strikes on the United States.
"Our government is in fiscal distress. To make contributions to a country that isn't going to be fully supportive is a problem for many," said Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein.
The White House acknowledged there was good reason for U.S. lawmakers, already doubtful of Pakistan's cooperation against al Qaeda, to demand to know whether bin Laden had been "hiding in plain sight" and to raise questions about U.S. aid.
Prime Minister David Cameron told BBC radio Britain would keep working with Pakistan to combat militancy, but insisted bin Laden "must have had a support network in Pakistan" and that Islamabad must answer questions on the subject.
In Islamabad, there was mostly a sense of embarrassment or indifference that bin Laden had managed to lie low for so long. "The failure of Pakistan to detect the presence of the world's most-wanted man here is shocking," the daily News said in an editorial, reflecting the general tone in the media.
Pakistan, where anti-U.S. sentiment runs high among its public, has a long history of nurturing Islamist militants in the interests of its strategic objectives, primarily facing up to what it sees as its biggest threat -- India. Pakistan's fear of India has been at the root of its support for the Afghan Taliban and separatist militants in Indian Kashmir.
In the first sign militants were attempting to strike back, Afghan forces killed and wounded 25 foreign fighters after they crossed the border from Pakistan, a government official said.
Taliban, al Qaeda and other Islamist militants have long operated out of safe havens and training camps in Pakistan's largely lawless northwest Pashtun tribal regions. Bin Laden was sheltered by the Afghan Taliban before the September 11 attacks.
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder urged authorities to "be mindful that bin Laden's death could result in retaliatory acts in the United States or against our interests overseas."
Bin Laden's death had initially boosted the dollar and shares in belief his killing reduced global security risks. But shares dipped on Tuesday and the dollar struggled to pull away from a three-year low as markets refocused on a fragile global economy and corporate earnings prospects. Still, the threat of revenge attacks could support oil prices, analysts said.
(Reporting by Reuters bureaux worldwide; Writing by Dean Yates and Matt Spetalnick; Editing by John Chalmers and Jackie Frank)
