DUBAI: Former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf has slammed the United States for violating Islamabad’s sovereignty in carrying carry out the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, a media report said Saturday.

The former military strongman told the expatriate Pakistan community in Dubai that all “peace loving people” should be happy that bin Laden was killed, but no Pakistani accepted the violation of their sovereignty. “No country will accept such a violation by the US, which undermines Pakistan’s sovereignty, army and intelligence,” Musharraf was quoted as saying in The National daily. “This is not acceptable to any Pakistani individual.”

However, Musharraf insisted that Pakistan and the US must work together to eliminate terrorism and urged that there should not be a showdown between the two.

“The relationship between Pakistan and the US has not been at its best for a while now, but to defeat Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, which is now our biggest threat, this relationship should not develop into confrontation,” he said.

Questions have been raised in the US about Pakistan’s role in the sheltering of bin Laden at a million-dollar villa within a stone’s throw of a prestigious Pakistan military academy at Abbottabad, near the capital Islamabad.

Musharraf said he did not believe that Pakistani government or military officials had knowledge of bin Laden’s presence or were harbouring him.  Read more: