Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s comment calling slain al-Qaeda chief and 9/11 US terrorist attacks mastermind Osama bin Laden a martyr was a “slip of the tongue ” said country’s Federal Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry.

Chaudhry said that Pakistan considers Laden a terrorist and al-Qaeda as a terrorist outfit, in an apparent attempt to prevent global backlash over Khan’s remaks.

Last year, Khan had drawn sharp criticism from various quarters after he referred to the slain terrorist as a martyr.

Addressing the National Assembly, the Pakistan PM had recalled how the Americans had carried out an operation in Abbottabad and “killed Osama Bin Laden — martyred him”.

In a viral video clip, Khan had hit out at the United States for how Laden had been killed in Abbottabad. Khan said, “shaheed kar diya”.

“We helped the Americans in ‘war on terror’ but the embarrassment we had to face for their allegations of Pakistan being a safe haven for terrorists is very terrible. Our ally is secretly coming into our country and killing a terrorist and we don’t even have an idea,” he had said in the video.

Defending Khan’s remarks, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, recently, in an interview with TOLO News, claimed that Khan’s statement was taken “out of context”.

“He [PM Imran Khan] was quoted out of context. And, uh, you know, a particular section of the media played it up. I will let that pass,” said Qureshi, after a brief pause, when asked whether he disagreed that Laden was a martyr.

Operation Neptune Spear 

Laden was killed in Pakistan’s Abbottabad on May 2, 2011, by a United States military special operations unit under Operation Neptune Spear.

The assault was authorised by ten United States President Barack Obama and was carried out by a team of United States Navy SEALs of the Joint Special Operations Command, with support from Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operatives on the ground.