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WASHINGTON -- Pakistan's intelligence service has arrested the owner of a safe house rented to the CIA to observe Usama bin Laden's compound before the U.S. raid that killed the Al Qaeda leader, as well as a "handful" of other Pakistanis, a U.S. official said late Tuesday.

In Pakistan, a Western official confirmed a New York Times report that five of the Pakistani informants who fed information to the CIA before the May 2 bin Laden raid were arrested by Pakistan's top military spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, known as ISI.

The officials spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence matters.

The Times, in an article posted on its website late Tuesday, said the detained informants included a Pakistani army major who officials said copied the license plates of cars visiting bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad in the weeks before the raid.

The Pakistani army denied Wednesday that one of its majors was among a group of Pakistanis who Western officials say were arrested for feeding the CIA information before the American raid that killed bin Laden.

The group of detained Pakistanis included the owner of a safe house rented to the CIA to observe bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad, an army town not far from the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, a U.S. official said. The owner was detained along with a "handful" of other Pakistanis, said the official.

The Western officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence matters.

The fate of the CIA informants who were arrested was unclear, but American officials told the newspaper that CIA Director Leon Panetta raised the issue when he visited Islamabad last week to meet with Pakistani military and intelligence officers.

In Islamabad, an ISI spokesman, who customarily speaks anonymously, declined to comment.

U.S.-Pakistani relations have been strained over the raid by Navy SEALs on Pakistani territory, which was a blow to Pakistan's military, and other issues. Officials said the arrests of the informants was just the latest evidence of the fractured relationship between the two nations.

The Times said that at a closed briefing last week, members of the Senate Intelligence Committee asked Michael Morell, the deputy CIA director, to rate Pakistan's cooperation with the United States on counterterrorism operations, on a scale of 1 to 10.

"Three," Morell replied, according to officials familiar with the exchange, the newspaper said.

American officials speaking to the Times cautioned that Morell's comment was a snapshot of the current relationship and did not represent the Obama administration's overall assessment.

"We have a strong relationship with our Pakistani counterparts and work through issues when they arise," Marie Harf, a CIA spokeswoman, told the newspaper. "Director Panetta had productive meetings last week in Islamabad. It's a crucial partnership, and we will continue to work together in the fight against Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups who threaten our country and theirs."



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WASHINGTON -- The terrorist described as the linchpin in the hunt for Usama bin Laden has rejoined Al Qaeda after the Bush administration released him from a secret CIA secret prison under pressure from Pakistan, according to former and current U.S. intelligence officials.

Shortly after the CIA decided to close the secret prisons, the U.S. intelligence agency returned Al Qaeda operative Hassan Ghul in 2006 to his native Pakistan, which had been demanding his release since his capture about two years earlier.

Pakistan held Ghul for at least a year before he was released, eventually making his way back to Al Qaeda to help with operations against the U.S., the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because details about Ghul's case remain classified.

Pakistan's decision to free Ghul, a midlevel Al Qaeda operative, is yet another troubling revelation in a time when the U.S. is rethinking its relationship with the Pakistan and whether it can be a trusted ally in the war on terror. Members of Congress have talked about ending aid to Pakistan after bin Laden was found inside Pakistan, hiding out in an urban area not far from a military garrison. Last week, CIA Director Leon Panetta confronted Pakistan's intelligence service about tipping off militants running bomb factories aimed at killing U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan.

Ghul's return to Pakistan also raises questions about how the Bush administration, which was committed to keeping arguably less dangerous detainees locked up at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, could hand over the man who provided the key information about bin Laden's trusted courier, intelligence that this year led to bin Laden's death at the hands of U.S. commandoes.

The move frustrated and angered former CIA officers, who at the time believed Ghul should have been moved to Guantanamo along with 14 other high-value detainees like Abu Zubaydah, a major Al Qaeda facilitator, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks.

A U.S. official said Pakistan made promises that it would hold Ghul, only to let him go and re-establish contact with Al Qaeda. A senior Pakistani intelligence official said he had no information about Ghul.

Former CIA officials say Ghul was part of Zubaydah's clandestine network of moneymen and couriers. The CIA had been pressing Pakistan to arrest Ghul for years and later learned after 9/11 he had been hiding at safe houses in the Lahore area belonging to the terrorist group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, which was behind the 2008 Mumbai attacks.

But Pakistan's spy service, the ISI, refused pick up Ghul.

When the CIA figured out that Ghul was traveling to meet with Al Qaeda operatives who had gone to Iraq after the 2003 invasion to fight the U.S., the agency decided to act. In a joint operation with the Kurds, Ghul was nabbed in northern Iraq in January 2004, former CIA officials said. Pakistan was furious when it learned the CIA had Ghul and pressed the U.S. to return him.

Instead, Ghul was taken to Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan but was later removed over questions about whether the transfer was legal, former CIA officials said. Ghul then was taken to a CIA "black site" -- a secret prison -- in Eastern Europe and provided information about bin Laden's most trusted courier before he was exposed to harsh interrogation techniques. Ghul's information later allowed the CIA to realize that finding the courier probably would lead to bin Laden.

Former CIA officials said in the rush to close the secret prisons, the U.S. was looking for ways to get rid of some of the remaining two dozen or so detainees in the agency's now-defunct interrogation and detention program. With Pakistan offering to take Ghul, U.S. officials figured they could build some good will by giving him back, and the CIA had the ISI's pledge that he wouldn't go free.

It's not clear why Pakistan wanted Ghul back so badly, but former CIA officers who targeted Ghul said he had ties to the Lashkar-e-Taiba terror group, which had the backing of ISI.