Pat Dollard | Young Americans

A Pakistani man injured in the attack which has been blamed on Nato

From yesterday:

Breaking - Suspected U.S. Missile Fired In NW Pakistan

Times Online

June 11, 2008

Islamabad - Pakistan has condemned a “cowardly and unprovoked” Nato airstrike which killed 11 of its soldiers last night, threatening relations between the West and Islamabad.

Afghan and Western forces called in the deadly attack after clashing with Pakistani forces in the disputed border region between the two countries. Pakistan has cited the incident as an example of aggressive US tactics from the Afghan side of the border.

The Pakistan army’s paramilitary checkpost at Gora Prai in the Mohmand tribal agency was “destroyed by coalition forces in Afghanistan through aerial attack”, killing 11 troops including an officer, said a statement reporting the comments of an army spokesman.

“The spokesman condemned this completely unprovoked and cowardly act on the FC (Frontier Corps) post and regretted the loss of precious lives of our soldiers,” the statement said.

He blamed the coalition forces for violent act and said that the incident had hit at the very basis of cooperation and sacrifice with which Pakistani soldiers are supporting the coalition in the war against terror.”

One Pakistan security official in the region said: “Sometime after midnight a missile fired from the Afghan side struck our post resulting in the martyrdom of at least 11 soldiers including a commanding officer. Nine soldiers were wounded.

“The injured and the dead bodies have been retrieved. The troops are still holding on to the post.”

According to senior Pakistan army sources, the incident began when its soldiers noticed that Nato forces and the Afghan National Army were constructing a military outpost on a mountaintop inside what Pakistan regards as its own territory.

“I am told the Afghan troops were actually building a kind of new outpost, were challenged by the Pakistan army and then the firing started,” said Zahid Hussein, Times correspondent in Islamabad.

“Helicopters also appeared when the clashes started. According to Pakistan military sources, the soldiers died in an airstrike by a US drone on Pakistani soldiers.

“This follows tensions between Pakistan and the US, and a marked increase in attacks from the other side of the border. Last month a US drone killed a number of civilians when it attacked a village inside Pakistan. This latest attack has had a much greater impact, however, as as not just civilians but Pakistani troops were killed.”

Pakistan reportedly plans to raise the incident with the head of US forces in Afghanistan at the next meeting of the Tripartite Commission, where Pakistan, Afghanistan and the US discuss security issues. It will seek assurances that cross-border incursions will be halted.

The nationality of the Western soldiers involved is unknown, but most of the foreign troops based in the rugged, mountainous region of eastern Afghanistan are American.

There has been no official confirmation from Afghan or Nato military spokespeople of exactly what happened in the far-flung border area known as Speena Sooka, or White Peak.

Reporting of the incident has been confused by the fact that, at the same moment, the Pakistani Taleban was launching an attack of its own in the same rugged, mountainous area. Some reports from the scene say that the Pakistani troops died in a general firefight as Afghan and Nato forces were repelling the Taleban insurgents.

A senior Pakistan officer said: “The militants launched a cross-border attack into Afghanistan. At least 10 of our soldiers were killed in a counter-offensive by forces in Afghanistan.”

Damagh Khan Mohmand, a local tribesman who witnessed the fighting, said that it lasted for four hours, with Afghan and foreign forces trading fire with the Pakistani militants and with the Pakistan troops.

Two aircraft bombed several locations, hitting two FC paramilitary posts, said Mr Khan Mohmand. He added that he saw drones flying over the area.

Government officials say that there were about 40 soldiers stationed at an FC post in Suran Dara, about 30 km (20 miles) northwest of Mohmand’s main town of Ghalanai.

The Pakistani Taleban said that its militants were involved in the fighting, claiming that they had attacked US and Afghan forces who were setting up a position on a mountaintop.

“American planes bombed the area and eight Taleban were killed and nine wounded,” the militant spokesman, Maulvi Omar, said by telephone.

He said he had heard that US aircraft had bombed a nearby Pakistani post, killing up to 25 soldiers, while the Taleban had captured seven Afghan troops and shot down a US helicopter.

State-run Pakistan Television reported that 18 people had died, including 10 troops and eight civilians. It said that Afghan and foreign forces had tried to set up a military post and were resisted by tribesmen. A NATO airstrike then struck a Pakistani military post, PTV said.

The incident comes as concern has been rising in Afghanistan about Pakistani efforts to negotiate peace pacts to end militant violence on its side of the border.

A new Pakistani government has been negotiating with elders of ethnic Pashtun tribes to get them to press militants in their areas to give up a campaign of violence in Pakistan in which hundreds of people have been killed over the past year. But Afghanistan and its Western allies say peace pacts in northwest Pakistan’s border regions enable militants to step up cross-border attacks from Pakistani sanctuaries.

Many al-Qaeda and Taleban militants took refuge on the Pakistani side of the border after US-led forces deposed the Taleban in Afghanistan in 2001.

Mohmand has not been a hotbed of support for al Qaeda and the Taleban but militants, who have been extending their influence in northwest Pakistan, are known to operate there. The region borders Kunar province in eastern Afghanistan.

Nato’s Isaf troops have reported several clashes in Kunar province, including an incident last month when NATO and Afghan troops had intelligence of an impending insurgent attack, and engaged in a firefight. On previous occasions Isaf forces have called in airstrikes when they have been pinned down by fire from numerous different directions.

Nato spokesmen in Afghanistan have so far been unavailable for comment. A US army spokeswoman in Afghanistan referred queries to the US embassy in Pakistan, which had no comment