ISLAMABAD, Nov 6: Afghan Ambassador in Islamabad, Abdul Salam Zaeef was summoned to the Foreign Office on Tuesday and conveyed displeasure of the United States over his daily press briefings, giving out details of incessant allied forces bombing in Afghanistan, an official source said.

Afghan ambassador was asked to stop his daily briefing as it did not conform with the diplomatic norms, the official said.

The foreign office pointed out that under the diplomatic conventions no diplomat could address a press conference against a third country, he said.

However, at the daily foreign office briefing when the spokesman, Aziz Khan, was asked about the summoning of Mulla Zaeef, said that it was a routine visit and there was nothing significant about it.

The press briefings of Mulla Zaeef giving details of human casualties and exposing target bombing of the allied forces had been drawing great attention of international media present in the federal capital to cover the war against terrorism.

Though Mulla Zaeef has been banned for holding press conferences, the United States Information Services has stepped up its propaganda war.

All the local newspapers as well as international media organizations are getting handouts daily from the office of Public Affairs Department of US Embassy accusing the Taliban of lying and exaggerating human casualties.

On Tuesday, they issued a handout under a heading ‘catalogue of lies’ in which the claims of human casualties by the Taliban or successes of the Taliban militia against allied forces had been refuted.

There are reports that the US embassy in Islamabad has decided to set up a special media centre for national and international media.

A similar centre is also being set up in London, a diplomatic source said.

The decision of setting up these centres is being viewed as a reflection of growing perception in the US administration that they had lost on the propaganda front against the Taliban who had access to the outside world only through their embassy in Islamabad.

Islamabad has already put an unofficial ban on the cable operators to provide transmission of al-Jazeera TV to their subscribers.

The US authorities at the highest level had also shown their displeasure over the coverage of al-Jazeera TV, which was the only international channel present in Kabul on Oct 7, when the US air force launched attack against the Kabul regime.

Later, the Taliban authorities took some representatives of international media organization to Kandahar, to get the first hand information about collateral damages.