Pakistan's army and military spy agency trained al-Qaeda and then maintained links with the militants afterwards, Imran Khan has said.

Pakistan's prime minister said his country had then made a major mistake siding with America during the war on terror after the 9/11 attacks.

The decision had cost 60,000 Pakistani lives as the country battled Islamist militancy and Pakistan would have been better staying neutral.

Mr Khan's comments at a New York think tank came ahead of his speech at the United Nations general assembly this week where he is expected to press the case for international action against India over Kashmir. He has also held meetings with Donald Trump trying to get the American president to restart talks with the Taliban movement in Afghanistan.

Asked at the Council for Foreign Relations about how Osama bin Laden had managed to stay in Pakistan undiscovered, Mr Khan said: “The Pakistani Army, ISI [military spy agency], trained al-Qaeda and all these troops to fight in Afghanistan.

“There were always links between—there had to be links, because they trained them."

He said the links were “probably at lower levels”, and he did not believe military chiefs had known of Bin Laden's presence.