Our friends the Pakistanis…

Pakistan has freed a senior al-Qaeda commander, who served as a bodyguard to Osama bin Laden, according to a senior security source, raising fresh questions about the country’s commitment to tackling terrorism.

Amin al-Haq, who escaped from Afghanistan with the al-Qaeda leader in 2001 and went on to become a key financial aide, was detained in Lahore three years ago by Pakistan’s intelligence agency.

A senior security source in the north-western Pakistani town of Peshawar, where he had been held, said the Inter-Services Intelligence agency had passed al-Haq on to the police before he was released earlier this month.

“Amin al-Haq had been arrested mistakenly, therefore, the police failed to prove any charge of his association with Osama bin Laden and the court set him free,” he told The Daily Telegraph.

A senior al-Qaeda commander “arrested mistakenly”. That tells you everything you need to know about Pakistan’s “counter-terrorism” policy. Islamabad plots terror attacks against American embassies while releasing senior terrorist commanders. And yet we keep sending these people billions of dollars in aid.