US warns Pakistan of action if attacks continue

Blaming the Inter Services Intelligence for "masterminding" the suicide attack on the Indian mission in Kabul, US President George W Bush has warned Pakistan of "serious action" if one more attack in Afghanistan or elsewhere is traced back to it.

Bush confronted Pakistan Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani last week during his Washington visit with evidence of involvement by the ISI in the deadly July 7 attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul, which left nearly 60 people, includingfour Indians, dead, The Sunday Times reported.

The US president warned Pakistan of "serious action" if one more attack in Afghanistan or elsewhere is traced back to it, the report said.

The move comes amid growing fears that Pakistan's tribal areas are turning into a global launch pad for terrorists.

According to the report, Gilani was left in no doubt that the Bush administration had lost patience with the ISI's "double game."

Gilani also met Michael Hayden, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, who confronted him with a dossier on ISI support for the Taliban. "The key evidence concerned last month's bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul," the report said.

An intercepted telephone conversation apparently revealed that ISI agents masterminded the operation. The United States also claimed to have arrested an ISI officer inside Afghanistan, the report said.

Ministers told the newspaper in Islamabad that they had left Washington reeling from what they described as a "grilling" and were shocked at "the trust deficit" between Pakistan and its most important backer.

"They were very hot on the ISI," said a member of the Pakistan delegation in Islamabad. "Very hot. When we asked them for more information, Bush laughed and said 'When we share information with your guys, the bad guys always run away.'"