Pakistan has arrested five alleged informants for the CIA who helped in the US raid that killed al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden in northern Pakistan in May, US media report.
Among those held by the intelligence agency, the ISI, was the owner of a safe house rented to the CIA to watch Bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, the New York Times reported.
The raid strained US-Pakistan ties.
US President Barack Obama said “someone” was protecting Bin Laden.
Pakistan has denied knowing Bin Laden’s whereabouts.
And US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on a recent visit to Pakistan that there was “absolutely no evidence that anyone at the highest level of the Pakistani government” knew where Bin Laden was.
‘Major arrested’
The ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) has not so far made any public comment on the arrests.
However, soon after Bin Laden was killed on 2 May, witnesses told the BBC that at least four Pakistanis were arrested. Two of the men were cousins of Bin Laden’s courier who were picked up from their village in the north west.
The other two were picked up from, or near, Abbottabad, about 60km (40 miles) north of the capital, Islamabad.
It is not clear whether the four were among the alleged CIA informants arrested.
The New York Times said those arrested included a Pakistani army major believed to have logged the number plates of cars visiting Bin Laden’s compound in the weeks before the raid.
The US has sharply reduced its troop presence in Pakistan at Islamabad’s request.
The US has provided Pakistan with billions of dollars of aid in recent years, much of it military assistance.
Pakistan has also been angered by US drone raids on tribal regions bordering Afghanistan in which civilians, as well as militants, have been killed.
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Pakistan ‘arrests CIA informants’