Pakistan Province Rejects U.S. Aid

Pakistani flood affected victims carry relief goods through a damaged bridge in western Pakistan in September 2010.

A high official says Pakistan's most populous province has canceled six aid agreements with the United States to protest the U.S. raid that killed Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden not far from the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.

Rana Sanaullah, law minister of Punjab province, said the abandoned agreements were in the fields of health, education, and solid-waste management.

The operation against bin Laden has strained already uneasy ties between the United States and Pakistan, who said the raid in a garrison town was a violation of its sovereignty.

Officials said Punjab had been expected to get $232.55 million for welfare projects in the next three years from the United States.

Pakistani officials had repeatedly dismissed suggestions that Pakistanis were helping to harbor the world's most-wanted terrorist, or even that he was hiding on their territory.

compiled from agency reports