Osama raid: ISI stops intelligence sharing with CIA

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Pakistan's spy agency has stopped sharing intelligence with the CIA following the unilateral US operation to kill Osama bin Laden, it was reported here.

Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agents, who had earlier been credited with helping spot targets for drone strikes and give data to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), have now started to withhold crucial operational details about militants, The Sunday Telegraph reported.

US commandos killed Osama on May 2 at his Abbottabad mansion. The US said it had not shared information about the daring raid with Pakistan.

The media report said the ISI has now broken off relations with the CIA.

"They are furious. They handed over telephone intercepts in 2009 that were crucial in leading to bin Laden's courier, the key breakthrough in the hunt," a source was quoted as saying.

"Then four months ago they were told there was nothing in it, it was what the Americans called a 'cold lead'. Since then they have been left out completely out of the loop."

Senior US officials said they stopped sharing information as they were concerned that sympathisers within Pakistani security forces would tip-off Osama.

Lieutenant General Talat Masood, a military analyst, said: "There are implications for both the US and international forces in Afghanistan, so the Americans will be very interested in getting the relationship back on track."