Citing unnamed current and former US officials, the newspaper said late Friday the undeclared halt in CIA attacks is aimed at reversing a sharp erosion of trust between the two countries.

US-Pakistani relations deteriorated last month after a series of US air strikes killed 24 Pakistan soldiers near the border with Afghanistan.

A joint US-NATO investigation concluded that a disastrous spate of errors and botched communications led to the deaths. Pakistan has rejected the findings.

The pause in the missile strikes comes amid an intensifying debate in the administration of President Barack Obama over the future of the CIA's covert drone war in Pakistan, the paper said.

The CIA has killed dozens of Al-Qaeda operatives and hundreds of low-ranking fighters there since the first Predator strike in 2004, but the program has infuriated many Pakistanis, the report noted.

Some officials in the State Department and the National Security Council say many of the airstrikes are counterproductive, The Times said.

They argue that rank-and-file militants are easy to replace, and that Pakistani claims of civilian casualties, which the United States dispute, have destabilized the government of President Asif Ali Zardari.

Some US intelligence officials are urging the CIA to cut back the paramilitary role it has assumed since the September 11, 2001, attacks to refocus on espionage, the paper pointed out.

They suggest handing the mission to the Pentagon's Joint Special Operations Command, which flies its own drones and conducts secret counter-terrorism operations in Yemen and Somalia, The Times noted.

The president's remarks came after he heard back from a government-appointed delegation assigned to look into civilian casualties sustained during recent NATO airstrikes and night time raids.

"The president stressed that the strategic partnership document will not be signed until the night raids and house searches stop," his office said in a statement.

"After hearing the report by the delegation, the president said that the arbitrary operations and house searches by NATO have become a serious problem between Afghanistan and NATO forces and that this has been one of the main obstacles on signing the strategic partnership deal with the United States."

The strategic partnership document being negotiated with Washington will govern the relationship between American troops and the Afghan government after the scheduled withdrawal of combat troops in 2014.

Night raids have been a persistent sticking point, but Karzai's refusal to sign until the operations end is his bluntest yet.

NATO has defended the operations as the safest way of targeting insurgent leaders, insisting they will continue but with the increasing involvement of Afghan special forces.

It insists that in 85 percent of night raids no shot is fired and they cause less than one percent of civilian casualties.

But Karzai has led public criticism of the controversial raids, saying they endanger lives and harass local communities, and repeatedly called on US-led international forces to stop entering Afghan homes.

The delegation appointed by Karzai investigated NATO airstrikes in Kandahar and Kapisa provinces in which several civilians died, and also a raid in Paktia in which the pregnant wife of the provincial anti-drugs chief was killed.

Lead investigator Mohammad Tahir Safi said: "We want civilian casualties to stop. We cannot tolerate any more.