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The magazine said the attack was prompted by "the agreement between Pakistan and the United States to hunt for top al-Qaeda and Taliban figures, as well as Pakistani militants, inside Pakistan."

The agreement was hammered out "during the recent visit to Washington by Pakistani army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kiani and also when the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency director Leon Panetta's visited Islamabad," the magazine said, citing "top-level Pakistani intelligence quarters."

The main concern of U.S. officials remains the continuing close relationship between elements of Pakistan's intelligence service, the ISI, and the Taliban, which officials in Islamabad claim they cannot control.

Their collaboration extends to leaks of impending U.S. drone attacks, sources say.

"With Pakistan's assistance, a drone attack helped eliminate several top Arab al-Qaeda militants, but when it came to cooperation on some Taliban leaders, the Pakistanis were found wanting," said  Asia Times' Islamabad bureau chief, Syed Saleem Shahzad. 

On another occasion, Pakistan reluctantly supplied intelligence on the location of Afghan rebel leader Jalaluddin Haqqani and his son Sirajuddin.  But by the time  the U.S. drones hit their targets, Jalaluddin and Sirajuddin were gone, and only the women and children of the Haqqani family were killed.

Fueled by civilian deaths in the tribal regions bordering Afghanistan, a new generation of Islamic fighters has arisen, according to Pakistani sources.

Dubbed the neo-Taliban, they are composed of "a new generation of Afghans and Pakistanis, and Pashtun and non-Pashtun Taliban imbibed with al-Qaeda's ideology," said the unusually detailed Asia Times Online story.

"Three years ago they were so few in number they did not warrant discussion. Now they number about 100,000, if not more," the magazine said.

Jeff Stein can be reached at jstein@cq.com.