Pakistan intelligence chief heads to US for talks

Pakistan's head of intelligence, Ahmad Shuja Pasha, flew to Washington on Wednesday for talks as relations between the two allies in the war on Al-Qaeda hit fresh lows over US aid cuts. During his one-day visit, the director general of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency will hold talks with senior US officials. "He is going there to discuss the intelligence coordination," Pakistani army spokesman Major General Athar Abbas told AFP. The United States has decided to withhold a third of its annual $2.7 billion security assistance to Islamabad after Pakistan ordered dozens of military trainers to leave following a US raid that killed Osama bin Laden. The cuts of $800 million reportedly include about $300 million used to reimburse Pakistan for costs of deploying more than 100,000 soldiers along the Afghan border, a hotbed of Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked militants.