Pakistan may let U.S. question bin Laden wives

ISLAMABAD/WASHINGTON, (Reuters) – Pakistan may let  U.S. investigators question the wives of Osama bin Laden, a U.S.  official said, a decision that could begin to stabilise  relations between the prickly allies that have been severely  strained by the killing of the al Qaeda leader.
However, senior Pakistani government officials in Islamabad  said today no decision had been taken on the U.S. request.
Bin Laden was shot dead on May 2 in a top-secret raid in the  northern Pakistani town of Abbottabad to the embarrassment of  Pakistan which has for years denied the world’s most wanted man  was on its soil.
The government is under pressure to explain how the al Qaeda  leader was found in the garrison town, a short distance from the   main military academy, and faces criticism at home over the  perceived violation of sovereignty by the U.S. commando team.
Pakistani cooperation is crucial to combating Islamist  militants and to bringing stability to Afghanistan and the U.S.  administration has been keen to contain the fallout.
U.S. investigators, who have been sifting through a huge  stash of material seized in bin Laden’s high-walled compound,  want to question his three wives as they seek to trace his  movements and roll up his global militant network.
“The Pakistanis now appear willing to grant access.  Hopefully they’ll carry through on the signals they’re sending,”  a U.S. official familiar with the matter said in Washington.
There was no immediate comment from the White House.
A Pakistani government official denied that permission for  the U.S. questioning of the women had been given, saying local  investigators had yet to finish their inquiry.
“It’s too early to even think about it,” said the official,  referring to the U.S. request to question the women.
Pakistan says the three wives, one from Yemen and two from  Saudi Arabia, and their children, will be repatriated and  Pakistan was making contacts with their countries but they had  yet to say they would take them, the official said.
Bin Laden’s discovery has deepened suspicion that Pakistan’s  pervasive Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) spy agency, which  has a long history of contacts with militants, may have had ties  with the al Qaeda leader, or that some of its agents did.
U.S. legislators have been asking tough questions, with some  calling for a cut in billions of dollars of U.S. aid to the  nuclear-armed Muslim country.