Afghan officials say Pakistan should have known bin Laden was there

By Hamid Shalizi

KABUL, May 4 (Reuters) - Pakistan's spy agency should have known Osama bin Laden was hiding not far from its capital, Afghan officials said on Wednesday, the first direct comments from Kabul about its neighbour's apparent inability to track the al Qaeda leader.

The case also raised questions about Pakistan's ability to protect its nuclear weapons adequately, said Afghan Defence Ministry spokesman Zaher Azimy.

Bin Laden, the architect of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, was killed by a U.S. strike team in a military garrison town about 60 km (35 miles) north of Islamabad on Monday.

U.S. says Osama bin Laden unarmed when shot dead

* Bin Laden "resisted", but not armed - White House

* U.S. debating whether to release photograph of body

* Pakistani newspaper decries "national embarrassment"

* U.S. vows to find out if Pakistan sheltered bin Laden (Adds Gilani quotes, Al Arabiya TV report)

By Kamran Haider and Matt Spetalnick

ABBOTTABAD/WASHINGTON, May 4 (Reuters) - Osama bin Laden was unarmed when U.S. special forces shot and killed him, the White House said, as it tried to establish whether its ally Pakistan had helped the al Qaeda leader elude a worldwide manhunt.

Pakistan faced national embarrassment, a leading Islamabad newspaper said, in how to explain that the world's most-wanted man was able to live for years in the military garrison town of Abbottabad, just north of the capital.

Islamabad vehemently denies it gave shelter to bin Laden.

"There is an intelligence failure of the whole world, not just Pakistan alone," Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani told reporters in Paris. "(If there are) ... lapses from the Pakistan side, that means there are lapses from the whole world."

The revelation that bin Laden was unarmed contradicted an earlier U.S. account that he had participated in a firefight with the helicopter-borne American commandos.