Washington:
The CIA provides hundreds of millions dollars to Pakistan's spy service, including payments for the capture or killing of wanted militants, a US newspaper reported, citing unnamed officials and former officials.
The CIA's financial support accounts for as much as one-third of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency's budget, the Los Angeles Times reported on Monday. When contacted, the Central Intelligence Agency declined to comment on the report.
The clandestine program that offers bounties to the ISI for the capture or killing of militants has prompted fierce debate within the US government, officials told the paper, as ISI is suspected of retaining ties and providing support for Taliban and other Islamist extremists in Afghanistan.
The payments were first approved by former president George W Bush and have continued under President Barack Obama, the report said.
Compared to the vast amount of publicly declared military and civilian aid to Pakistan, CIA officials told the paper that their payments were a bargain. "They gave us 600 to 700 people captured or dead," one former CIA official who worked with the Pakistanis was quoted as saying. "Getting these guys off the street was a good thing, and it was a big savings to (US) taxpayers."
Another intelligence official said Pakistan had made "decisive contributions to counter-terrorism."