By leaking the name of the CIA's station chief in Islamabad to the news media, Pakistan authorities were deliberately attempting to complicate the U.S. spy agency's work after the raid that killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, The New York Times reported Monday.
The release of such sensitive information, the second time the CIA's top spy in Islamabad has been leaked in the past five months, shows a developing rift between the two agencies, the Times said, citing American and Pakistani officials.
Pakistan's prime minister said Monday that Laden's death in an American raid was "indeed justice done" and rejected allegations that national authorities were either complicit in hiding the al-Qaida chief or incompetent in tracking him down.
But Yousuf Raza Gilani also warned Washington that future unilateral strikes could be met with "full force."
Gilani expressed confidence in Pakistan's military and Inter-Services Intelligence agency, known as the ISI, which have been heavily criticized for failing to confront the U.S. Navy SEALs who conducted last week's helicopter raid without notifying Pakistan first.
The operation took place May 2 in Abbottabad, an army town only two and half hour's drive outside the capital. The location of bin Laden's hide-out has sparked suspicion that Pakistani officials knew where the al-Qaida leader was hiding and may have been helping him.
Gilani adamantly rejected those allegations, saying, "It is disingenuous for anyone to blame Pakistan or state institutions of Pakistan, including the ISI and the armed forces, for being in cahoots with al-Qaida."
Ties between Islamabad and Washington, which are crucial to combating Islamist militants and the war in Afghanistan, have been strained by the raid, which was carried out without Pakistan's knowledge.
Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., told NBC News late Monday that the current U.S.-Pakistan relationship "makes less and less sense" if the Pakistanis do not become a more reliable partner with the U.S. in fighting terror.
Feinstein said the relationship between the U.S. and Pakistan is becoming "increasingly problematic" with the failure to detect bin Laden, Pakistani intelligence support for the Haqqani network and the failure to turn over militants involved in the Mumbai attacks.
Pakistani-U.S. relations were already fragile after a string of diplomatic disputes over other issues, including an attack by a U.S. drone aircraft in March and controversy over CIA contractor Raymond Davis, who shot dead two Pakistanis in January.
Stirring tensions further, a Pakistani TV channel and a newspaper published what they said was the name of the undercover CIA station chief in Islamabad.
Last year, after the chief of the ISI agency was named in a U.S. civil case over attacks on the Indian city of Mumbai, the then-head of the CIA's Islamabad station was named by Pakistani media and he was forced to leave the country.
This time, the new station chief does not intend to leave Pakistan, American officials told The Times.
The U.S. embassy declined to comment to the Associated Press, but said no one of that name worked at the mission in Pakistan.
The Times reported that the name appeared spelled incorrectly but was in a close approximation to a phonetic spelling in a Saturday edition of The Nation, a conservative daily newspaper seen as supportive of the ISI. The ISI often plants stories in the Pakistani media, according to The Times, and is known to keep some journalists on its payroll.
"Allegations of complicity or incompetence are absurd. Pakistan is not the birthplace of al-Qaida," said Gilani in a speech to parliament. "We did not invite Osama bin Laden to Pakistan or even to Afghanistan."
Gilani agreed that the failure to find bin Laden, who was reportedly living in Abbottabad for up to six years, was a mistake. But he insisted it wasn't Pakistan's alone.
"Yes, there has been an intelligence failure," said Gilani. "It is not only ours but of all the intelligence agencies of the world."
He said that the army will conduct an inquiry into the raid and military officials will brief parliament later in May.
Pakistan scrambled fighters
The Pakistani military scrambled F-16 fighters and sent forces to bin Laden's compound as soon as they were aware of the raid, Gilani said.
Even though they were unable to interdict U.S. forces before they were on their way back to Afghanistan, he expressed confidence in their performance.
"Our response demonstrates that our armed forces reacted, as was expected of them," said Gilani.
He warned the U.S. against launching future such attacks, saying "unilateralism runs the inherent risk of serious consequences."
"Pakistan reserves the right to retaliate with full force," said Gilani. "No one should underestimate the resolve and capability of our nation and armed forces to defend our sacred homeland."
But he insisted that relations with the U.S. remain strong and the two countries have worked well together during this period of crisis.
"Our communications at the official and diplomatic levels with the U.S., during this phase, have been good, productive and straight forward," said Gilani.
He also praised the result of the raid.
"Osama bin Laden was the most wanted terrorist and enemy number one of the civilized world," said Gilani. "Elimination of Osama bin Laden, who launched waves after waves of terrorists attacks against innocent Pakistanis, is indeed justice done."
U.S. officials confirmed a claim by General Ashfaq Kayani before the Pakistani parliament Monday that ISI provided the U.S. information that ultimately led to bin Laden, NBC News reported. The officials say, however, the tips from ISI came "very early in the process," and helped track down bin Laden's trusted courier. But the officials emphasize the ISI nor anyone else in the Pakistani government gave the U.S. any information that bin Laden was holed up in a compound in Abbotabad.
'We want resignations'
Pakistan's main opposition party has stepped up calls for Gilani and the president, Ali Asif Zardari, to resign over the breach of sovereignty by U.S. special forces.
"We want resignations, not half-baked explanations," an official of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League told the News daily.
Others were dismayed by bin Laden's apparent ability to live in the country undetected for so long.
"If he was really living in that compound for five years ... then why didn't our agencies discover him?" former foreign minister Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri told reporters. "This has given anti-Pakistani elements a chance to ridicule us."
President Barack Obama said on CBS's "60 Minutes" that bin Laden likely had "some sort" of a support network inside Pakistan, but added it would take investigations by Pakistan and the United States to find out just what the nature of that support was.
"We think that there had to be some sort of support network for bin Laden inside of Pakistan. But we don't know who or what that support network was," Obama said.
"We don't know whether there might have been some people inside of government, people outside of government, and that's something that we have to investigate, and more importantly, the Pakistani government has to investigate," he added.
Suspicion has deepened that the pervasive ISI, which has a long history of contacts with militant groups, may have had ties with the al-Qaida leader — or that some of its agents did.
Talat Masood, a retired general and defense analyst, said that if there was official collusion to keep bin Laden secure it was most likely provided at a local level.
"I feel definitely there were influential people who were protecting him," he told Reuters. "I believe there was real ignorance at the highest level but there was collusion at the local level."