Pakistan Angry As Strike By U.S. Kills 11 Soldiers

Team Infidel

Forum Spin Doctor
New York Times
June 12, 2008
Pg. 1
By Carlotta Gall and Eric Schmitt
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — American air and artillery strikes killed 11 Pakistani paramilitary soldiers during a clash with insurgents on the Afghan border on Tuesday night, a development that raised concerns about the already strained American relationship with Pakistan.
The strikes underscored the often faulty communications involving American, Pakistani and Afghan forces along the border, and the ability of Taliban fighters and other insurgents to use havens in Pakistan to carry out attacks into neighboring Afghanistan.
The attack comes at a time of rising tension between the United States and the new government in Pakistan, which has granted wide latitude to militants in its border areas under a new series of peace deals, drawing criticism from the United States.
NATO and American commanders say cross-border attacks in Afghanistan by insurgents have risen sharply since talks for those peace deals began in March.
Although Pakistani government officials softened their response through the day on Wednesday, the Pakistani military released an early statement calling the airstrikes “unprovoked and cowardly.”
Shaken by the initial Pakistani reaction, administration officials braced for at least a short-term rough patch in relations with Islamabad.
“It won’t be good,” said a Pentagon official who followed developments closely throughout the day. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.
The precise circumstances surrounding the reported deaths remained unclear, and American officials said an American-Pakistani investigation was expected to begin immediately.
But according to accounts from American officials, the incident started when Taliban fighters from Pakistan crossed about 200 yards into Kunar Province, on the Afghan side of the border, and attacked American-led forces with small-caliber weapons and rocket-propelled grenade fire.
After coalition forces returned fire, driving the insurgents back into Pakistan, two United States Air Force F-15E fighter-bombers and one B-1 bomber dropped about a dozen bombs — mostly 500-pound munitions — on the attackers. An Air Force statement said the militants were struck “in the open and in buildings in the vicinity of Asadabad.”
A spokesman for the Taliban said their forces had attacked an American and Afghan position near the border, and said eight of their fighters had been killed and nine wounded in the fighting.
Before the airstrike, a Pentagon official said, American forces alerted a Pakistani military liaison officer, trying to ensure that friendly troops were out of harm’s way.
But the Pakistani officer was either unaware that Pakistani paramilitary forces had moved into the area near the insurgents, or the Pakistani forces never got the word to get out of the way, American officials said.
“They got caught in the wrong place at the wrong time,” the Pentagon official said.
Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani of Pakistan denounced the attack in Parliament and said he had instructed the Foreign Ministry to make a formal protest to the American ambassador, Anne Patterson.
But the Pentagon press secretary, Geoff Morrell, told reporters in Washington that “every indication we have at this stage is that it was a legitimate strike in self-defense.” American rules of engagement bar American forces from crossing or firing into Pakistan except to protect themselves.
By Wednesday afternoon, Pakistan’s new ambassador to Washington, Husain Haqqani, had softened his government’s reaction, telling Reuters, “We do look upon it as not an act that should cause us to reconsider our partnership but rather to find ways of improving that partnership.”
Seth Jones, an analyst with the RAND Corporation who was conducting research in Kunar Province last week, said: “It’s almost surprising more of this hasn’t happened given the vast amount of traffic across the border. This creates a real serious impetus for the U.S. to coordinate more closely with Pakistan forces.”
American officials in Pakistan and in Washington, while expressing regret for the Pakistani deaths, said the episode underscored the need to improve the equipping of and coordination with Pakistani security forces operating near the border, including the Frontier Corps, a paramilitary force of about 85,000 members recruited from ethnic groups on the border.
American and Pakistani officials say the Frontier Corps, which is drawn from Pashtun tribesmen who know the language and culture of the tribal areas, is the most suitable force to combat an insurgency over the long term in the border region, where the regular Pakistani military often is not welcomed.
It was unclear whether the Pakistan liaison officer involved in the airstrike on Tuesday was from the Pakistani Army or the Frontier Corps, an important distinction because the two security forces have not always worked together smoothly, American officials said.
Gonzalo Gallegos, a State Department spokesman in Washington, said, “This is a reminder that better cross-border communications between forces is vital.”
The Pentagon has spent about $25 million so far to equip the Frontier Corps with new body armor, vehicles, radios and surveillance equipment, and plans to spend $75 million more in the next year.
Over all, administration officials have said the United States could spend more than $400 million in the next several years to enhance the Frontier Corps, including building a training base near Peshawar.
Until recently, the Frontier Corps had not received American military financing because the corps technically falls under the Pakistani Interior Ministry, a nonmilitary agency that the Pentagon ordinarily does not deal with.
Gen. David D. McKiernan, the new NATO commander in Afghanistan, said last week that one of his first trips as commander would be to meet with the Pakistani Army’s chief of staff, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, to try to resurrect a commission created by NATO and the Afghan and Pakistani militaries to address border issues. In recent months, Pakistan has not taken part in the commission.
The United States, which has about 34,000 military personnel in Afghanistan, part of an international presence totaling about 60,000, is also in the midst of building six border coordination posts that will be operated by Pakistani, American and other allied forces.
At the Pentagon, Mr. Morrell said, “It is incumbent upon both of us not to let an incident like this or any other interfere with that fundamental shared goal of making sure the F.A.T.A. is not a refuge for terrorists.” He was referring to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, the contested border area.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was expected to discuss the event with her Pakistani counterpart on Thursday at the Afghan donors conference in Paris, American officials said.
There have been several American strikes recently on insurgents inside Pakistani territory. In March, three bombs, apparently dropped by an American aircraft, killed nine people and wounded nine others in the tribal area of South Waziristan that officials say provides sanctuary to Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
In late January, one of Osama bin Laden’s top lieutenants, Abu Laith al-Libi, was killed by two Hellfire missiles launched from a Predator surveillance aircraft.
The clash on Tuesday occurred at a border post called Chopara on the frontier with the Afghan province of Kunar, where American and Afghan forces have battled insurgents for several years. The insurgents have been using Mohmand and the adjacent area of Bajaur as a base for attacks into Afghanistan.
Fighting has been reported on the Afghan side of the border between insurgents and Afghan and American forces. According to one news report, one militant was killed and three wounded in a firefight on Monday.
The dead on the Pakistani side included a major and were all from the Mohmand Rifles, a paramilitary detachment of the Frontier Corps, the force deployed in Pakistan’s tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, a security official said, speaking in return for customary anonymity.
Officers in the Frontier Corps are generally assigned from the Pakistani Army. The bodies of the dead were being flown to Peshawar on Wednesday morning, the government official said. Among five wounded were three civilians, he said.
Local tribesmen with rocket launchers and Kalashnikov rifles gathered Wednesday near the checkpoint to show their outrage after the attack, Agence France-Presse reported.
Earlier this month, the American commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan said that Taliban forces in southern Afghanistan were fleeing to the Pakistani border after being routed in recent operations by the United States Marines.
Gen. Dan K. McNeill, who stepped down last week as NATO commander in Afghanistan, seemed to warn Pakistan to contain the threat emanating from its land, and said the Taliban and drug traffickers had long used refugee camps across the border as a sanctuary from American firepower.
He said that if the Taliban and foreign insurgents continued to enjoy free sanctuary outside Afghanistan, their numbers would continue to grow.
The new Pakistani government sought peace deals with the militants after many Pakistanis saw a drastic increase in suicide bombings in Pakistan as being in retaliation for American strikes.
Carlotta Gall reported from Islamabad, Pakistan, and Eric Schmitt from Washington. Ismail Khan contributed reporting from Peshawar, Pakistan.
 
Refer to response to "Pakistan slams US on cowardly air strike." As usual, can't believe much the Middle East says about the US.
 
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