Former CIA Director Michael Hayden and his No. 2, Steve Kappes, had multiple conversations with Pakistani government officials inside the U.S. following the November attacks in Mumbai, India, in hopes of easing tensions between the hostile neighbors, a counterterrorism official told FOX News on Monday.
The official, who is familiar with U.S. intelligence activities in the aftermath of the Mumbai attack, said the U.S. intelligence community was deeply concerned that the tensions between the rival nuclear nations would escalate.
The official also acknowledged that the sharing of intelligence between the countries -- through the CIA acting as facilitator -- allowed Pakistan to be forthcoming about the linkage between the 10 men -- nine of whom were killed in the attack --to Lashkar-i-Taiba, a terror group that wants the disputed territory of Kashmir to be controlled by Pakistan.
The role the CIA played was first laid out on Monday in The Washington Post, which reported sources saying the CIA "orchestrated back-channel intelligence exchanges between India and Pakistan" that helped the two sides "overcome mutual suspicions and paved the way for Islamabad's announcement last week acknowledging that some of the planning for the attack had occurred on Pakistani soil."
The intelligence included "sophisticated communications intercepts and an array of physical evidence detailing how the gunmen and their supporters planned and executed their three-day killing spree in the Indian port city," the Post reported. The CIA and FBI also helped by vetting the details and using its own sources to fill in the blanks, the newspaper said.
A Pakistani official told FOX News that Pakistan shared evidence with U.S. intelligence services, and the CIA played a key role in assisting the Pakistani and Indian intelligence services and acting as a bridge between them.
The two nations are critical players in the region. India's large population, democratic government and emerging economy have made it a strong U.S. ally for years. In the last administration, Pakistan took on a critical role for U.S. anti-terror efforts in part because of its large border with Afghanistan.
Hayden told FOX News last month that Lashkar-i-Taiba and Al Qaeda are at a "merge point." He said attacks like the one in Mumbai, which ended with 170 dead and more than 300 wounded, are very low-tech but extremely destructive, and indicated the terror group's activities must be closely watched.
"It certainly is eye-opening in terms of looking at what was done there by really a small group of people, with very basic weapons," he said. "So it is something that you should pay us to worry about and try to predict, for the future."
Click here to read The Washington Post article.
FOX News' Catherine Herridge contributed to this report.