Obama passing on an opportunity to apologize? This has to be a first.

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The United States refused to say sorry Monday for taking out Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, after its estranged anti-terror ally warned it would retaliate against any future strikes.

Amid a deepening crisis between the two uneasy partners, Washington pressed for access to three of the dead Al-Qaeda chief’s widows, who it believes may have valuable information on bin Laden’s movements and on the terror group.

In a further sign of tension over last week’s daring covert raid in Abbottabad, the New York Times meanwhile reported that Pakistani authorities had retaliated by leaking the name of the CIA chief in Islamabad to the media.

Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, under intense domestic pressure over his country’s failure to detect the stealth US special forces raid, earlier hit out at American unilateralism and warned against future US action.

But at the White House, spokesman Jay Carney said Obama was convinced he had done the right thing by sending in special forces at the dead of night in a raid in which bin Laden was killed in his Pakistani lair.

“We obviously take the statements and concerns of the Pakistani government seriously, but we also do not apologize for the action that we took, that this president took,” Carney said.