Pakistani LIers: U.S. should cut off aid

The Pakistani community on Long Island is as mystified as anyone how Osama bin Laden could have been living undetected in a sizable city in their homeland, and some even called for the United States to cut off the billions of dollars in aid it has been sending to Pakistan.

"We are all astonished he was right under their noses," said Muhammed Athar Suhail, president of the Masjid Darul Quran mosque in Bay Shore. "It just brings embarrassment to the Pakistani nationals that the government is so incapable of doing anything. We know it's the most corrupt government we ever had."

Sheryar Choudry, 36, a Dix Hills resident and owner of a medical billing company, said there were two possible options to explain bin Laden's presence in Abbottabad: Either there was a failure of the intelligence agencies, or they knew but did not tell other Pakistani officials or U.S. spy agencies.

"Obviously, either these guys failed to see this or they're in on it and did not want the elected officials to know about it," he said. He noted that bin Laden's compound was located about 10 minutes from the Pakistani equivalent of West Point.

Choudry added that he did not blame the Pakistani government, which he also considers corrupt, because they rely on information from their intelligence agencies. He noted the United States has also had intelligence failures, such as telling then-President George W. Bush that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction or issuing a green card to Sept. 11 terrorist Mohammad Atta.

Kamal Zafar, 43, a health care consultant from Huntington and president of the Pakistani-American Association of Long Island, said he has visited Abbottabad. "It's like paradise, like upstate New York," he said.

"It is very hard for me to believe that he's been living in this rich suburb without anybody knowing it," he said, adding that almost all Pakistani nationals here shared that opinion. "We cannot trust the Pakistani army, simple as that."

He added that the United States should stop sending military aid to Pakistan. "That has to stop," Zafar said. "That is absolutely absurd."

Nuaman Tyyeb, 30, a pharmaceutical company owner from Valley Stream, said, "There had to be other people who knew he was there."

Still, he did not condemn every aspect of the Pakistani military and intelligence agencies, saying that despite the bin Laden episode, "Pakistan has established they are fighting the same mission as the United States" against terrorism.