On Oct. 6, Cyril Almeida, a senior Pakistani journalist, published an article in the English-language newspaper Dawn titled "Act against militants or face international isolation, civilians tell military." The article narrated an intense scene of heated debate between the country's top civil and military leaders, held a few days previously.
So far, the Pakistani government has rejected the story three times by calling it an "amalgamation of fiction and fabrication." In addition to its rejections, the government has put Almeida's name on the Exit Control List (ECL), barring him from foreign travel. Dawn, meanwhile, continues to defend the story by arguing that the published material was fact-checked and crosschecked with multiple sources to ensure its credibility.
The vivid details reported in the story reflect a deepening division between the civil and military leadership that has further grown aggravated in the wake of the Kashmir crisis and growing international pressure on Pakistan for its inability to take on all terrorists after the Uri attacks.