WASHINGTON - Pakistan's top military spy agency has arrested five CIA informants who fed information to US intelligence before the raid last month that killed Osama bin Laden, the New York Timesreported yesterday.
One of the detainees was reported to be a Pakistani army major whom officials said copied licence plates of cars visiting the al-Qaeda leader’s compound 30 miles (48km) northwest of Islamabad.
The fate of the informants was unclear, the newspaper reported, citing American officials.
Outgoing CIA director Leon Panetta raised the issue of the informants’ detention during a trip to Islamabad last week where he met Pakistani military and intelligence officers, the newspaper said.
The Inter-Services Intelligence directorate (ISI), Pakistan’s main military spy agency, declined to comment, but the army denied any army major was among those arrested in connection with the May 2nd raid by US special forces in the town of Abbottabad.
"There is no truth in [the] NYTstory with regards to involvement and arrest of [an] army major in connection with the OBL [Osama bin Laden] incident," military spokesman Maj-Gen Athar Abbas said in a statement.
A senior Pakistani security official said some people were detained in connection with the Abbottabad raid and they were still being investigated.
Asked whether those arrested were CIA informants, as mentioned in the newspaper report, he said: “Investigations are under way and after completion of investigation one can say which category they belonged to.”
Some in Washington see the arrest as another sign of the deep disconnect between US and Pakistani priorities in the fight against extremists.
The US kept Islamabad in the dark about the raid by Navy Seals in Abbottabad until after it was completed, humiliating Pakistan’s armed forces and putting US military and intelligence ties under serious strain.
Last week, at a closed Senate intelligence committee briefing, deputy CIA director Michael Morell rated Pakistan’s co-operation with the US on counterterrorism operations a “three” on a one to 10 scale, the newspaper reported.
Other officials said his comments did not represent the administration’s overall assessment. “We have a strong relationship with our Pakistani counterparts and work through issues when they arise,” CIA spokesman Marie Harf told the newspaper.
“Director Panetta had productive meetings last week in Islamabad. It’s a crucial partnership.”
Asked about the New York Timesreport, a CIA spokeswoman neither confirmed nor denied it.
Pakistan’s ambassador to the US Husain Haqqani was quoted as saying the CIA and the ISI “are working out mutually agreeable terms for their co-operation in fighting the menace of terrorism. It is not appropriate for us to get into the details at this stage”. – (Reuters)