US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta. — File Photo

WASHINGTON: US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta is acknowledging publicly for the first time that a Pakistani doctor provided key information to the US in advance of the successful Navy SEAL assault on Osama bin Laden’s compound last May.

Panetta told CBS’s ”60 Minutes,” in a profile to be broadcast on Sunday, that Shakil Afridi helped provide intelligence for the raid on bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad.

Afridi ran a vaccination program for the CIA to collect DNA and verify bin Laden’s presence in the compound. He has since been charged by Pakistan with treason. Panetta said he is ”very concerned” for the doctor.

Panetta still believes someone in authority in Pakistan knew where Osama bin Laden was hiding before US forces went in to find him.

Intelligence reports found Pakistani military helicopters had passed over the compound in Abbottabad where US Navy SEALs discovered and killed bin Laden last year, according to excerpts of Panetta’s interview.

“I personally have always felt that somebody must have had some sense of what was happening at this compound. Don’t forget, this compound had 18-foot walls… It was the largest compound in the area.

“So you would have thought that somebody would have asked the question, ‘What the hell’s going on there?’” Panetta told CBS.

The Pentagon chief said that concern played a significant factor in Washington not warning Pakistani officials of the impending raid: “It concerned us that, if we, in fact, brought (Pakistan) into it, that — they might…give bin Laden a heads up,” he said.

Panetta acknowledged he did not have “hard evidence” Pakistan knew of the Al-Qaeda leader’s whereabouts.

US Navy SEALs killed Bin Laden on May 2 in a raid on a compound in the Pakistani garrison town of Abbottabad, north of Islamabad, and later buried the 9/11 mastermind at sea.