Pakistan rejects NYT report on army major arrest in Osama raid

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Islamabad, June 15, IRNA -- Pakistan's military Wednesday rejected a New York Times report that the country spy agency has arrested some of the Pakistani informants who fed information to the CIA in the months leading up to the raid that led to the death of Osama bin Laden.

Quoting unnamed American officials, the NYT reported that Pakistan’s detention of five CIA informants, including a Pakistani Army major who copied the license plates of cars visiting Bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in the weeks before the raid, is the latest evidence of the fractured relationship between the United States and Pakistan.

Pakistan army dismissed the reports about the arrest of the army’s major as baseless and said no serving army personnel has been arrested.

The fate of the CIA informants arrested in Pakistan is unclear, but American officials 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.

The army Spokesman strongly refuted a news item published in a section of press in which it is claimed that an Army officer (Major) is included in detained persons regarding Abbotabad incident, a statement from, the Inter-Services Public Relations said.

“There is no army officer detained and the story is false and totally baseless,” the spokesman concluded.

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