Pakistan has been accused of tipping off al-Qaeda linked fighters before raids on their hide-outs as Leon Panetta, the head of CIA, warned that American boots would be stationed there as long as the country could not be trusted. Mr Panetta visited Islamabad during the weekend to deliver damning evidence that Pakistan -- or at least some elements within its security services -- was continuing to protect extremists in its tribal belt.
In a meeting with Pakistani military chiefs, he handed over satellite imagery showing insurgents evacuating two bomb factories in Waziristan, days after the US had passed on surveillance video of the sites, according to a security source in Islamabad.
It is understood that Marc Grossman, US envoy to the region, delivered a video of the two installations in meetings last month with General Ashfaq Kayani, head of the Pakistan military, and Lieutenant General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, director of the Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency One was in a girls' school in the city of Miramshah, where the Haqqani network is headquarted. The second, in South Waziristan, was believed to be operated by al-Qaeda.
But the militants had fled by the time Pakistani forces moved in, raising suspicion that that the intelligence had been leaked. Relations between the two countries have hit rock bottom since Osama bin Laden was shot dead by a team of US Navy Seals in his hideaway only 30 miles from the Pakistani capital Islamabad.