NEW DELHI: Pakistani officials are offended by the country’s depiction in the latest season of the American television series Homeland insisting the drama series shows it as a “grimy hellhole” where diplomats aide terrorists.

The fourth season of the Emmy-winning show featured Claire Danes’ CIA agent character Carrie Mathison on assignment in Islamabad attempting to capture a terrorist leader who was being helped by Pakistani intelligence operatives.

“Maligning a country that has been a close partner and ally of the United States…. is a disservice not only to the security interests of the US but also to the people of the US,” Pak Embassy Press Attacje Nadeem Hotiana told the New York Post in Washington.

The series, which was mainly filmed in Cape Town for the fourth season, has also upset leaders in Israel, after a character compared former Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin to the show’s fictional terrorist villain.

Herzl Makov, the director of Israel’s Menachem Begin Center, told an Israeli news service he was unhappy with the reference.

“It is surprising specifically because Homeland is based on the Israeli (television series) format Prisoners of War.

The show was adapted from the Israeli series Hatufim, Prisoners of War, which debuted in 2010.