Washington: Pakistan has hinted that all-weather friend China wants a peek at the US' secret stealth-modified helicopter abandoned during the Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden, according to a media report.
ABC news reported Pakistani officials are interested in studying the remains of helicopter and they suggested that the Chinese are interested as well.
The apparent Pakistan and Chinese interest was reported even as a key US lawmaker demanded immediate return of the chopper debris for fear of American military secrets being compromised.
"If this is not done immediately, it is probable, given Pakistan's history, that our technology has already found its way into the hands of the Communist Chinese military that is buying, building, and stealing the necessary military technology to challenge the United States," said Congressman Dana Rohrabacher while introducing a legislation in the House of Representatives to stop American aid to Pakistan.
In 1998, Pakistan's military and intelligence services facilitated the transfer of an unexploded American Tomahawk missile recovered by Taliban to China.
The Chinese were then able to reverse engineer the missile and dissect its components allowing them to learn its vulnerabilities and defeat its capabilities.
During the May one raid in Abbottabad, a specially configured stealth US Special Forces helicopter crashed and even though US soldiers attempted to destroy it, the tail was left intact and recovered by the Pakistanis.
The US has already asked the Pakistanis for the helicopter wreckage back, but one Pakistani official told ABC News the Chinese were also "very interested" in seeing the remains. Another official said, "We might let them (the Chinese) take a look."
A US official said he did not know if the Pakistanis had offered a peek to the Chinese, but said he would be "shocked" if the Chinese hadn't already been given access to the damaged aircraft.
The chopper, which aviation experts believe to be a highly classified modified version of a Blackhawk helicopter, clipped a wall during the operation that took down the Al Qaeda leader, the White House said.
The Navy SEALs that rode in on the bird attempted to destroy it after abandoning it on the ground, but a significant portion of the tail section survived the explosion.
In the days after the raid, the tail section and other pieces of debris - including a mysterious cloth-like covering that the local children found entertaining to play with - were photographed being hauled away from the crash site by tractor, ABC reported.
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