Islamabad: Pakistani and American spy agencies are embroiled in a fresh spat after sections of the media in Pakistan made public the alleged name of the CIA station chief in Islamabad in the wake of the US raid that killed Osama bin Laden.
However, unnamed US and Pakistani officials have told Western media outlets that the name carried by a Pakistani newspaper and a news channel was incorrect.
The US officials have also said there are no plans to pull out the CIA station chief from Islamabad.
The purported name of the CIA station chief was broadcasted on the ARY news channel on May 6.
The channel claimed that ISI chief Lt Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha had met the CIA station chief and expressed Pakistan's reservations about the raid by US special forces that killed bin Laden in the garrison city of Abbottabad on May 2.
The matter was subsequently reported by The Nation, a right-wing daily known for its criticism of the US and India.
An unnamed senior Pakistani intelligence official told CNN that the person named in the media reports is not the CIA station chief.
Referring to the name cited in The Nation, the official said, "If we were going to release the name, we would release the right one."
This is the second incident of its nature in less than six months.
In December last year, the CIA was forced to withdraw its station chief in Islamabad after he was named in media reports and a lawsuit filed by a tribesman against US drone strikes in Pakistan's tribal belt.
At that time, US officials said they believed the name was leaked by Pakistani intelligence operatives in retaliation for the implication of the ISI chief and other officials in a lawsuit filed in a Brooklyn court by relatives of two victims of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks.
The latest spat between the spy agencies reflects the tensions in Pakistan-US relations following the killing of bin Laden in a compound located a short distance from the Pakistan Military Academy in Abbottabad, a garrison city that is home to thousands of soldiers.
US officials, including President Barack Obama and CIA chief Leon Panetta, have spoken of the need for Pakistan to conduct a probe to ascertain whether bin Laden was being sustained by a support network.
Ties between the CIA and ISI were yet to recover from the blow delivered by the arrest of suspected CIA contractor Raymond Davis in Lahore in January when the US raid against bin Laden was carried out.
Though Davis was released in March after over two million dollars were paid to the families of two Pakistani men he killed, the spy agencies have grappled to return their ties to an even keel.
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