| McClatchy Washington Bureau ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Pakistan on Wednesday accused U.S.-led NATO forces of killing 11 paramilitary troops in an "unprovoked" and "senseless" air strike Tuesday night on their post just inside Pakistan's mountainous border with Afghanistan. SAVE MONEY ON TRAVEL DEALS Pakistan said the coalition attack killed 11 members of the Mohmand Rifles, a unit of the Frontier Corps, a local paramilitary force commanded by regular army officers. Thirteen other troopers were injured, Pakistani officials said. The Foreign Ministry called the incident "a gross violation" of the international border that threatens to "undermine" cooperation with U.S. and NATO forces fighting Islamic insurgents in Afghanistan who use Pakistan's remote tribal region as a refuge. "The attack was unprovoked", a Foreign Ministry statement said. "The senseless use of airpower against a Pakistani border post by Coalition Forces is totally unacceptable. It constitutes a blatant and willful negation of the huge sacrifices that Pakistan has made in its endeavor to combat terrorism." The statement represented Islamabad's harshest criticism of the U.S.-led NATO coalition since the Bush administration won Pakistan's support for the 2001 intervention in Afghanistan. The incident is likely to cause further damage to the fraying relationship between the U.S. and the Pakistani military at a time when senior U.S. officials are concerned that Osama bin Laden and his supporters are plotting new terrorist attacks on the United States and its allies from sanctuaries inside Pakistan's tribal belt. U.S. commanders complain that the Pakistani military has failed to deal forcefully with al-Qaida-allied Afghan and Pakistani Islamic militants and contend that peace deals negotiated by the army have enabled militants to step up their attacks on Afghan and coalition forces in Afghanistan. The insurgency also is showing signs of spreading out of the tribal belt along the Afghan border into Pakistan's North West Frontier Province. Some U.S. officers privately contend that some Pakistani army, intelligence and paramilitary officers are secretly continuing to aid the insurgents despite Islamabad's avowed support for the Bush administration's "war on terror." Earlier this week, a study by the RAND Corporation, a U.S. research group, concluded that Pakistan is training, financing and otherwise aiding Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. The Pentagon commissioned the study. Islamabad vehemently denies the charges, and the Pakistani military accuses U.S.-led NATO forces of fanning the insurgency through an over-use of firepower that has claimed the lives of civilian Pashtuns, the ethnic group that comprises the bulk of the insurgents, on both sides of the frontier. It also complains that it has lost thousands of troops deployed at the Bush administration's request to contain the militants. The latest incident occurred in Mohmand, which borders the Afghan province of Kunar and is one of seven semi-autonomous agencies comprising the Federally Administered Tribal Area, a deeply impoverished region of soaring mountains and serpentine valleys. A U.S. military statement said coalition forces fired artillery at insurgents who had attacked the coalition's base, which is close to the Pakistani post. It said NATO forces coordinated the artillery barrage beforehand with the Pakistani military. "Shortly after the attack began, coalition forces informed the Pakistan army that they were being engaged by anti-Afghan forces", the statement said. "At that same time, an unmanned aerial system also identified anti-Afghan forces firing at coalition forces. In self-defense, coalition forces fired artillery rounds at the militants." Coalition aircraft also dropped bombs, the statement said.
(c) 2008, McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. Visit the McClatchy Washington Bureau on the World Wide Web at www.mcclatchydc.com.
GRAPHIC (from MCT Graphics, 202-383-6064): 20080611 PAKISTAN For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. 1059261 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Related News Topics:
News of South Asia
Top news from around the world
News of Asia and Oceania
South and Central Asia
|
