US airstrike kills 11 Pakistanis

2008-06-12 07:27

Matthew Pennington

Islamabad - Pakistan's army and the US military have given widely differing accounts of a clash on the Afghan border that left 11 Pakistani troops dead.

While their forces were just a few hundred metres apart during the fighting late on Tuesday, a huge gulf separates their views of events - underscoring the mutual suspicion between two uneasy allies in the war against international terrorism.

The alliance is unpopular among Pakistanis, whose newly elected civilian government is negotiating with some militants in hopes of curbing a surge in violence. Western officials fear peace deals could give more space for Taliban and al-Qaeda militants to operate.

There was no way to independently check on what happened in the fighting Tuesday night on the ill-defined border between Pakistan's Mohmand tribal agency and Afghanistan's Kunar province.

It is difficult for journalists to reach the area, communications are poor and the different players in the lawless region seem prone to give their own spin - not least the Taliban militants against whom both the US and Pakistan are supposed to be combating together.

Insurgents attacked

US officials said three aircraft launched about a dozen bombs against insurgents attacking into Afghanistan from Pakistan.

The Pentagon said it was too early to say whether the airstrike killed the Pakistani troops, as claimed by Pakistan's army, although the US Embassy in Islamabad expressed regret over the deaths.

American officials defended the air attack, saying the US-led coalition in Afghanistan was retaliating after its troops came under fire about 200 yards inside Afghan territory.

The coalition said it had informed Pakistan's army the troops were being attacked from a wooded area near the Pakistani border checkpoint at Gorparai - where the Pakistani troops were killed.

The implication of that account appeared to be that the Pakistani troops were near the insurgents who were attacking coalition forces inside Afghanistan. Buttressing that view, the Taliban said eight of their fighters also died.

Different version of events

But Pakistan's army spokesperson, Major General Athar Abbas, rejected the claim that insurgents attacked from inside Pakistan or from the direction of the Pakistani border post. He also denied the US military gave prior notice before it opened fire.

Abbas described a very different series of events.

He said the fighting broke out after Afghan government soldiers who had occupied a mountaintop position in a disputed border zone on Monday acceded to a Pakistan request to withdraw.

"They were on their way back and they were attacked by insurgents in their own territory," Abbas said.

He said the Afghans then called in the coalition airstrikes, which he said hit the Pakistani Frontier Corps post across the border.

One of the few things the US and Pakistani accounts appeared to agree on was that coalition troops did not cross onto Pakistan soil, although Abbas said coalition helicopters might have intruded into Pakistani airspace.

A Pakistani army statement condemned the airstrike as a "completely unprovoked and cowardly act" that could undermine cooperation in the war against terrorist groups.

The US-Pakistani alliance was forged in late 2001 after Pakistan's government dropped its support for Afghanistan's Taliban regime before it was ousted by a US-led invasion for hosting Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda fighters following the September 11 attacks on America.

- AP