WASHINGTON, Oct 29: A senior Pentagon official broke government rules and lied to superiors when he set up an ‘unauthorised’ network of private contractors to spy in Afghanistan and Pakistan, an internal probe has found.

The investigation stated that the high-ranking intelligence expert set up the network starting in late 2009 and “deliberately misled” top generals about it, according to a Pentagon spokesman who summarised the classified report on Friday.

“These policy violations consisted of directing unauthorised HUMINT operations conducted by non-government personnel under the guise of gathering and reporting ‘force protection atmospherics’ for the ‘Information Operations CAPSTONE’,” a human intelligence gathering project, Pentagon spokesman David Lapan said.

The results of the Defence Department investigation, ordered by Defence Secretary Robert Gates after The New York Times reported on the network’s existence in March, are classified.—AFP