Pakistan's parliament condemns bin Laden raid

Pakistan's parliament condemned the US raid to find and kill Osama bin Laden, calling for a review of US ties and warning that Pakistan could cut supply lines to American forces in Afghanistan if there were more such attacks.

Pakistan's intelligence chief was cited as saying he was ready to resign over the bin Laden affair, which has embarrassed the country and led to suspicion that Pakistani security agents knew where the al Qaeda chief was hiding.

Yesterday, two suicide bombers attacked a military academy in a northwestern town killing 80 people in what Pakistani Taliban militants said was their first act of revenge for bin Laden's death on May 2.

The secret US raid on bin Laden's lair in the garrison town of Abbottabad, 50 km (30 miles) north of Islamabad, has strained already prickly ties with the United States.

It has also led to domestic criticism of the government and military, partly because bin Laden had apparently remained undetected in Pakistan for years, but also because of the failure to detect or stop the US operation to get him.

"Parliament ... condemned the unilateral action in Abbottabad which constitutes a violation of Pakistan's sovereignty," it said in a resolution issued after security chiefs briefed legislators.

Pakistan has dismissed as absurd any suggestion that authorities knew bin Laden was holed up in a high-walled compound near the country's top military academy.

The US administration has not accused Pakistan of complicity in hiding bin Laden but has said he must have had some sort of support network, which it wants to uncover.

Pakistan has a long record of using Islamist militants as proxies, especially to counter the influence of nuclear-armed rival, India.

Members of the two houses of parliament said the government should review ties with the United States to safeguard Pakistan's national interests and they also called for an end to US attacks on militants with its pilotless drone aircraft.

They also called for an independent commission to investigate the bin Laden case.

On relations with the United States, Pakistan says there has been a breakdown in trust and in a sign of the chill in ties, the chairman of Pakistan's joint chiefs of staff committee, General Khalid Shameem Wynne, cancelled a five-day visit to the United States that had been set to begin on May 22.