WASHINGTON Pakistani authorities are increasingly monitoring and restricting the movements of foreigners, a major American newspaper reported on Monday, citing four police refusals to allow US Embassy employees to enter Peshawar over the past 10 days. In a dispatch from Islamabad, The Washington Post cited US and international aid officials as saying that they believe the restrains represent a backlash against American actions in Pakistan that have enraged the government and the public. US Embassy officials were cited as saying that US employees were making routine trips to attend meetings or to fill in for workers at the US Consulate there. Those incidents came after months of growing requirements for govt permits to travel in areas that had been easily accessible, as well as deportations of workers whose visas have expired while their extension applications languished in bureaucracy. The widely publicised episodes in Peshawar threaten to become another flash point in a frayed bilateral relationship after fatal shootings by a CIA contractor and the US commando raid that killed Osama bin Laden, the Post said. The fallout from those incidents, which sparked debate about the presence of Americans in Pakistan, has prompted scrutiny of all foreigners that could imperil humanitarian work in zones recovering from conflict and floods, it said. 'It has the potential to cause serious delays, especially because some of this donor money is time-sensitive and emergency-related, Jack Byrne, country representative for Catholic Relief Services and Chairman of an umbrella group of international humanitarian organisations in Pakistan, was quoted as saying. The heightened restrictions mostly apply in the northwest region bordering the tribal belt, and several Pakistani officials said they are designed to ensure foreigners safety, according to the Post. But security in Peshawar and its province has generally improved in the past year, and one provincial official said the restrictions also reflect concerns that foreigners have too much latitude in Pakistan. That sentiment has grown since CIA contractor Raymond Davis was arrested after killing two Pakistanis in January, sparking a diplomatic row. 'That incident shook the mutual trust of both the governments. We dont want a repeat, Khyber Pukhtunkhwa Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain was quoted as saying. 'In no country are the foreign diplomats freely roaming without informing the government. But when we do this, there is a hue and cry, he said. In each of the recent incidents, US officials said the Embassy followed a long-standing routine of notifying Peshawar police that employees were driving from the capital, Islamabad, so police could escort them from a highway toll-booth into the City. On those occasions, the employees were turned away at the toll-booth for lacking permits known as 'No Objection Certificates, or NOCs, which are issued by the Federal Interior Ministry but can also involve approvals from the military or intelligence agencies. US officials said that those permits had not been required before and that there has long been an agreement that diplomats can travel between Embassy and consular posts without them, in part because obtaining NOCs can take more than a week. Security and government officials in northwest Pakistan countered that the requirement has always existed and that it applies to all the foreigners. US officials said they were unsure whether the Peshawar incidents amounted to a systematic effort to thwart the movements of Americans whose Consulate in the City is widely viewed here as a front for CIA operations or whether they were done for show. Each time US vehicles were turned away from toll-booths, television cameras were there, the Post said. Whatever the reason, a US official said, 'to us, this is not a constructive way to rebuild the relationship. Officials at Pakistans Foreign and Interior Ministries did not respond to numerous calls for comment, the dispatch said.