NEW YORK, May 24: Amnesty International has condemned the United States for the `unlawful’ commando raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad.

“The US administration made clear that the operation had been conducted under the US’s theory of a global armed conflict between the US and Al Qaeda in which the US does not recognise the applicability of international human rights law,” the Amnesty said in its annual report released on Wednesday.

“In the absence of further clarification from the US authorities, the killing of Osama bin Laden would appear to have been unlawful.”

The human rights group noted that a request for clarification over an apparent US drone strike in Yemen last September that killed US-born radical cleric Anwar Al Awlaqi, his Al Qaeda co-conspirator Samir Khan and at least two others had gone unanswered.

“These killings appeared to have amounted to extrajudicial executions,” it said.—Masood Haider