Islamabad:
The Pakistani military canceled a visit by a delegation of its officers to the United States to protest what the military called the group's mistreatment by security staff at Washington's Dulles International Airport, a spokesman for the military said Wednesday.
It was the latest sign of strains in the relationship between the two countries, allies in the fight against the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
An eight-member Pakistani delegation led by an Army brigadier-general had been invited to an annual meeting at United States Central Command in Tampa, Fla., according to Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, the military spokesman.
But, at Dulles International, he said, they were asked to leave a plane bound for Florida and subjected to what the spokesman called "unwarranted security checks" on Monday night.
"Later, the delegation was cleared and U.S defense officials regretted the incident," the spokesman said. "However, as a result of these checks, military authorities in Pakistan decided to cancel the visit and call the delegation back."
Pakistan did not officially offer additional details about the incident.
But an account published Wednesday by the English-language newspaper DAWN quoted unidentified military sources as saying that security officials had detained the Pakistani delegation for two hours, "telling them nothing, not allowing them to talk to anyone."
"They were treated like terrorists," the newspaper quoted an unidentified Pakistani official as saying.
The incident may have begun when a passenger complained to United States officials that the Pakistani brigadier general was overheard making what were interpreted as threatening remarks, Pakistani news reports said.
The brigadier general and two of his colleagues were then detained for questioning. But DAWN also reported that the Pakistani brigadier general had an altercation with a stewardess that delayed by 40 minutes before the delegation was told to leave the plane.