NEW YORK - Pakistans army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani is fighting to save his position in the face of 'seething anger from top generals and junior officers since the American raid that killed Osama bin Laden, according to The New York Times. Citing unnamed Pakistani officials and people who have met the army chief in recent weeks, the newspaper said in a dispatch from Islamabad that Gen Kayani faces such intense discontent over what is seen as his cozy relationship with the US that a colonels coup, while unlikely, was not out of question. The Pakistani Army is essentially run by consensus among 11 top commanders, known as the Corps Commanders, and almost all of them, if not all, were demanding that General Kayani get much tougher with the Americans, even edging toward a break, the Times said. Washington with its own hard line against Pakistan has pushed General Kayani - who has led the Army since 2007 - into a defensive crouch, along with his troops, and if the general was pushed out, the United States would face a more uncompromising anti-American army chief, it said. In response to pressure from his troops, the dispatch, citing Pakistani and American officials, said that General Kayani had already become a more obstinate partner, standing ever more firm with each high-level American delegation that has visited since the raid to try and rescue the shattered American-Pakistani relationship. In a prominent example of the new Pakistani 'intransigence, The New York Times reported Tuesday that, according to American officials, Pakistans ISI had arrested five Pakistani informants who helped the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) before the Bin Laden raid. The officials said one of them is a doctor who has served as a major in the Pakistani Army. In a statement on Wednesday, a Pakistani military spokesman called the story 'false and said no army officer had been detained. Over all, Pakistani and American officials said, the relationship was now more competitive and combative than cooperative. General Kayani told CIA chief Director Leon Panetta, during a visit here last weekend that Pakistan would not accede to his request for independent operations by the agency, Pakistani and American officials said. A long statement after the regular monthly meeting of the 11 corps commanders last week illuminated the mounting hostility toward the United States, even as it remains the armys biggest patron, supplying at least $2 billion a year in aid, the Times said in its report. The statement, aimed at rebuilding support within the army and among the public, said that American training in Pakistan had only ever been minimal, and had now ended. It needs to be clarified that the army had never accepted any training assistance from the United States except for training on the newly inducted weapons and some training assistance for the Frontier Corps, a reference to paramilitary troops in the northwest tribal areas, the statement said. The statement said that the CIA-run drone attacks against militants in the tribal areas were not acceptable under any circumstances. Allowing the drones to continue to operate from Pakistan was politically unsustainable, said the well-informed Pakistani who met General Kayani recently. As part of his survival mechanism, General Kayani could well order the Americans to stop the drone programme completely, the Pakistani said. The Pakistanis have already blocked the supply of food and water to the base used for the drones, a senior American official said, adding that they were gradually strangling the alliance by making things difficult for the Americans in Pakistan. The turmoil within the Pakistani Army has engendered the lowest morale since it lost the war in 1971 against East Pakistan, now Bangladesh, army observers say. The anger and disillusionment stems from the fact that the Obama administration decided not to tell Pakistan in advance about the bin Laden raid and that Pakistan was then unable to detect or stop it. Discipline has become a worry, as has an open rebellion in the middle ranks of officers, particularly as rumours circulate that some enlisted men have questioned whether General Kayani and his partner, Lt Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha, the head of ISI, the Directorate for the Inter-Services Intelligence, should remain in their jobs. A special three-year extension General Kayani won in his position last year did not sit well among the rank and file who perceived it as having been pushed by the United States to keep its man in the top job, the dispatch said. Keeping discipline in the lower ranks is a challenge, said Shaukat Qadri, a retired army brigadier. General Kayanis problems have been magnified by a groundswell of unprecedented criticism from the public, questioning both the armys competence and the lavish rewards for its top brass, something that also increasingly rankles modestly paid enlisted men, the Times said.