ISI chief visits Washington in patch-up trip

Lieutenant-general Ahmad Shuja Pasha's visit comes days after the government extended his tenure for the second time.

ISLAMABAD: The head of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is visiting his counterpart at the CIA, the agency said on Monday, in an attempt to patch up an alliance considered crucial to winning the war against al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban.

Lieutenant-general Ahmad Shuja Pasha's visit comes at a time when US-Pakistan joint intelligence operations have been disrupted over a series of disputes, particularly the case of Raymond Davis, a CIA contractor who shot dead two Pakistanis in Lahore in January.

Pakistan held Davis despite US insistence that he enjoyed diplomatic immunity. He was released last month after the families of the dead men were paid compensation, a custom in Pakistan and sanctioned in Islam.

The ISI offered no details on Pasha's trip which also comes days after the government extended his tenure for the second time to ensure continuity.

Pasha is generally seen as getting on well with his US counterparts, but he has faced personal embarrassment after families of the victims of the Mumbai 2008 attacks named him and other ISI operatives in three lawsuits filed before a federal court in Brooklyn, New York.

The suits allege that the ISI officers were involved with Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) in planning and orchestrating the Mumbai attacks in which US citizens were among the victims.

Pakistan's government has said it will "strongly contest" the litigation.