Pakistan dismisses report about Major's arrest

Pakistani on Wednesday dismissed as "totally baseless" a United States media report which claimed that an army Major was among five arrested informants who had provided information to the Central Intelligence Agency ahead of the American raid that killed Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden.

In a brief statement, a spokesman for the Inter Services Intelligence's public relations "strongly refuted" the news report, saying "there is no army officer detained and the story is false and totally baseless."

The New York Times had quoted American officials as saying that the ISI had arrested five Pakistani informants who fed information to the CIA in the months leading up to the raid that killed bin Laden in Abbottabad.

The report said the detained CIA informants included a Pakistan army Major who "copied the license plates of cars visiting bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad."

The daily contended that the development was the latest evidence of the fractured relationship between the US and Pakistan.

The fate of the arrested informants is "unclear" and Central Intelligence Agency Director Leon Panetta had raised the issue when he traveled to Islamabad last week to meet the Pakistani military and intelligence leadership, the report added.