Pakistan, US discuss future intel sharing framework

CIA chief Leon Panetta held talks with top Pakistani military and intelligence officials and discussed ways to strengthen future intelligence sharing, the Pakistani military said.The talks were held Friday amid a crisis in relations after the unilateral US raid that killed Osama bin Laden.The difficult relationship between the two countries -- allies in the "war on terror" -- has come under severe strain since US commandos swooped on the al-Qaeda chief's compound in the city of Abbottabad, home to a military academy.Panetta's visit to Islamabad came as the United States said it had nearly completed a drawdown in military personnel from Pakistan as demanded by Islamabad after relations plummeted over the May 2 killing of bin Laden.Panetta called on army chief General Ashfaq Kayani. "Both sides discussed the framework for future intelligence sharing," the military said in a statement late on Friday after the meeting.The CIA chief also discussed the security situation with Kayani and Lieutenant General Ahmad Shuja Pasha, the director general of Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, according a Pakistani security official.The official confirmed that issues arising from the bin Laden operation, which was carried out without informing Islamabad, were also discussed.A spokesman from the US embassy in Islamabad declined to comment.

Vice Admiral Michael LeFever, US defence representative in Pakistan, made the announcement about the troop drawdown in a statement released by the embassy, but left the door open to future security assistance.The United States confirmed on May 25 that it had begun pulling some American troops out of Pakistan after the Pakistani military asked for a scaling back.Pakistan faces mounting American pressure to open a ground offensive against insurgents in its lawless tribal region.The Washington Post reported Friday that US intelligence officials had twice handed Islamabad tips about insurgent bomb-making factories in the area, only to find them abandoned before Pakistani troops arrived.The vacated factories in North and South Waziristan have led US officials to question whether the information had been mistakenly leaked in recent weeks or whether the insurgents had been directly warned by the ISI, the report said.