Pakistan angry at US air strike

[questionmark]

June 12, 2008

US airstrike kills 11 Pakistani soldiers in 'cowardly and unprovoked attack'

Pakistan accused US forces yesterday of killing 11 of its soldiers in an “unprovoked and cowardly” attack on a border post, an act that it said threatened to undermine the two countries’ joint effort in the War on Terror.

The soldiers were killed late on Tuesday night in what American officials called a “regrettable incident” at Gora Pai in the Mohmand tribal region of Pakistan, bordering the Afghanistan Kunar province, where coalition forces have been fighting Taleban insurgents.

A senior Pakistani security official said the fighting erupted after Afghan and Nato forces tried to set up a mountain-top post along a disputed stretch of the frontier and were told by border troops to withdraw.

A group of militants attacked the coalition troops as they were retreating and American assault helicopters came to their aid, killing eight insurgents. However, some of the missiles hit the Pakistani checkpoint and destroyed it.

This was the most Pakistani soldiers killed in an attack by US-led coalition forces, and Islamabad used its strongest language yet to condemn the American actions as violating its sovereignty.

“We will take a stand for sovereignty, integrity and self-respect and we will not allow our soil [to be attacked],” Yousaf Raza Gilani, the Prime Minister, told Parliament.

“The violent attack hit at the very basis of co-operation and sacrifice with which Pakistani soldiers are supporting the coalition forces,” Major-General Athar Abbas, the chief military spokesman, said.

He denied that the insurgents had struck from Pakistan or that there had been any attack launched from the border post. He also denied that the coalition had given prior notice of its operation in the area. Major General Abbas said Afghan army forces had come under attack inside Afghanistan as they were withdrawing at Pakistan’s request after setting up a military post in the disputed border region. “They were on their way back and they were attacked by insurgents in their own territory,” he said.

The US military confirmed that it had used artillery and air-strikes in self-defence after its forces had come under fire from the Taleban. “Shortly after the attack began, coalition forces informed the Pakistan Army that they were being engaged by anti-Afghan forces in a wooded area near the Gora Pai checkpoint,” the Pentagon said in a statement.

“At that same time, an unmanned aerial system also identified anti-Afghan forces firing at coalition forces. In self-defence, coalition forces fired artillery rounds at the militants.”

Full story, source: The Times

[danielost]

The allies are building a fort there. Pakistan didn't know that.