Thaindian News

Washington, June 15 (IANS) Pakistan’s spy agency has arrested some Pakistani informants who fed information to the US Central Intelligence Agency before the raid on Osama bin Laden’s hideout deep inside Pakistan, according to the New York Times.

Five CIA informants detained by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) include a Pakistani army major, who the influential US daily citing American officials said copied the license plates of cars visiting bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, near Islamabad, in the weeks before the US raid,

The fate of the CIA informants arrested is unclear, but American officials cited by the Times said that the CIA director, Leon E. Panetta, raised the issue when he travelled to Islamabad last week to meet with Pakistani military and intelligence officers.

When he visited Pakistan, Panetta offered evidence of collusion between Pakistani security officials and the militants staging attacks in Afghanistan, the Times said.

American officials cited by the daily said Panetta presented satellite photographs of two bomb-making factories that American spies several weeks ago had asked the ISI to raid.

When Pakistani troops showed up days later, the militants were gone, causing American officials to question whether the militants had been warned by someone on the Pakistani side.

Meanwhile, in a sign of the growing anger on Capitol Hill, Republican representative Mike Rogers, who leads the House Intelligence Committee, said Tuesday that he believed elements of the ISI and the military had helped protect bin Laden, the Times said.

Rogers, who met with senior security officials in Pakistan last week, as cited by the Times said he had no evidence that senior Pakistani military or civilian leaders were complicit in sheltering bin Laden.

He did not offer any proof to support his assertion, saying only his accusation was based on “information that I’ve seen,” it said.