The paper said that details about last week’s commando operation have emerged that indicate the mission was more intrusive than had previously been known.

It quoted two American officials briefed on the raid as saying it involved more than two dozen members of the Navy Seals who spent several hours on the ground and killed about two dozen suspected Qaeda fighters in what now appeared to have been a planned attack against militants who had been conducting attacks against an American forward operating base across the border in Afghanistan.

Supported by an AC-130 gunship, the Special Operations forces were whisked away by helicopters after completing the mission.

Pakistan’s government has asserted that last week’s raid achieved little except killing civilians and stoking anti-Americanism in the tribal areas.

“Unilateral action by the American forces does not help the war against terror because it only enrages public opinion,” said Husain Haqqani, Pakistan’s ambassador to Washington, during a speech on Friday.

“In this particular incident, nothing was gained by the action of the troops.”

The stepped-up campaign inside Pakistan, the Times says, comes at a time when American-Pakistani relations have been fraying. There is resentment within American intelligence agencies about ties between ISI, and militants in the tribal areas.