Washington DC:
The United States has no concrete evidence that the Pakistani establishment had information about the hideout used by Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, a top Pentagon official has said.
"We have no definitive evidence at this point that they knew if Osama bin Laden was at this compound," said Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy, the first Pentagon official to comment on-the-record about the raid.
Questions about whether Pakistan knew of Osama's whereabouts, and may even have helped hide him, arose immediately after Monday's raid in which the Al Qaeda chief was killed in the garrison town near Islamabad.
Flournoy, one of the three co-authors of the Af-Pak policy of the Obama Administration, however, said that the US has sought more details from Pakistan.
The United States is talking with the Pakistanis to try to understand "what they knew and what they didn't know," she said in her remarks to the Aspen Institute.
"There's great opportunity for cooperation (from Pakistan) in making sense of what we learn from the materials gathered in the operation," Flournoy said, adding that "from understanding the network as it remains and how to put further pressure on the network to hasten its demise, and more broadly to cooperate in a way that ultimately helps stabilize not only
Pakistan but Afghanistan."
Flournoy described the contacts with Pakistan as "very candid," and stressed the need for concrete moves on the Pakistanis' part to prove their commitment.