BBC: Pakistan fury at deadly US strike

BBC ^ | Wednesday, 11 June 2008 17:51 UK 16:51 GMT, | BBC Staff

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Pakistan fury at deadly US strike

Details of the clashes that sparked the apparent air strike remain unclear

Pakistan's Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani has condemned an air strike by Afghanistan-based US forces that Islamabad says killed 11 of its troops.

The incident took place inside Pakistan, near the border with Afghanistan.

The US military confirmed it had used artillery and air strikes after coming under fire from "anti-Afghan" forces.

The incident comes as relations between the US and Pakistan militaries have been hit by mounting tensions.

The soldiers' deaths occurred overnight at a border post in the mountainous Gora Prai region in Mohmand, one of Pakistan's tribal areas, across the border from Afghanistan's Kunar province.

Eight Taleban militants were also killed in the clashes, a Taleban spokesman said.

'Cowardly act'

If the 11 deaths are confirmed, it would be the worst incident of its kind since US and Nato-led forces began fighting militants in Afghanistan in 2001.

Prime Minister Gilani condemned the deaths, telling parliament: "We will take a stand for the sake of this country's sovereignty, for the sake of its dignity and self-respect".

"We do not allow our territory to be used. We completely condemn this, and will take it up through the foreign office."

Pakistan's military called it a "completely unprovoked and cowardly act".

Pakistan-US relations hit a low Meeting feared Pakistani militant

The US military said in a statement that coalition troops had come under fire from "anti-Afghan forces" in a wooded area near the Pakistan border.

The statement said artillery and air strikes had been co-ordinated with Pakistan, but that the incident was being investigated.

A spokesman for a pro-Taleban militant group in Pakistan said it had launched an attack on US and Afghan army troops trying to set up a border control post.

"We launched an attack on them from several sides and caused serious harm - and then the US and Nato forces began a series of air strikes," said the spokesman, Maulvi Umar.

Lawless border

There is increasing anger in Pakistan at US strikes on its territory which have killed more than 50 people this year, says the BBC's Barbara Plett in Islamabad.

Both US forces and Nato-led coalition forces are operating in Afghanistan, with Nato focused mainly on peacekeeping and reconstruction and the US troops working more directly to combat militant activity.

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Funerals have been held for the 11 soldiers who died

Taleban fighters have a strong presence in the border areas of the tribal districts and local administrators have little power there, although security forces keep a presence on the border.

There is rising frustration among the Afghans and foreign troops at Pakistani efforts to negotiate peace deals with pro-Taleban militants on its side of the border.

Afghan and US-led forces accuse Islamabad of not doing enough to deny Taleban militants a hiding place in Pakistan's tribal areas and to stop them from infiltrating the border into Afghanistan.

They are worried that the Pakistan government's recent peace talks with the militants there will only give the Taleban more room for manoeuvre.

Pakistan denies the accusations, saying it has lost about 1,000 soldiers fighting militants in the tribal border areas.

[kenavi]

I expect Candidate Obama’s silence on this to be deafening.

[brydic1]

No doubt Bush looked into the eyes of Musharraf and saw the same kind of soul that he saw in Putin. Bush was certainly no judge of character.

[Paul Ross]

Pakistan's military called it a "completely unprovoked and cowardly act".

Looks like they have some 'splaining to do. I.E., they have been contradicted...according to their own buddies...the Taliban:

A spokesman for a pro-Taleban militant group in Pakistan said it had launched an attack on US and Afghan army troops trying to set up a border control post. "We launched an attack on them from several sides and caused serious harm - and then the US and Nato forces began a series of air strikes," said the spokesman, Maulvi Umar.

[Paul Ross]

"The militants launched a cross-border attack into Afghanistan," an unnamed Pakistani security official told Reuters. "At least 10 of our soldiers were killed in a counter-offensive by forces in Afghanistan." Geo TV reported 13 Pakistani soldiers, including a major, were killed. An estimated 50 Pakistani soldiers were manning an outpost in Suran Dara along the Afghan-Pakistani frontier. The region borders Afghanstan's Kunar province.

Gee, some "help" we are getting from those Paki soldiers and their outposts. If they did the job they were supposedly under orders to...the Taliban would already be history.

Anyways I am shedding few tears if any. And there might be some others equally unconcerned on our side....Doesn't this kind of remind you of the Israeli air raid "mistakes" hitting those UN outposts in Lebanon that were giving Hamas cover?

[Recon Dad]

Prime Minister Gilani condemned the deaths, telling parliament: “We will take a stand for the sake of this country’s sovereignty, for the sake of its dignity and self-respect”.

But it’s ok for AQ and Taliban to use your country with impunity.

[Straight Vermonter]

We usually hear within 24 hours about US or coalition casualties. I haven’t yet heard anything from our side about casualties have you?

[Straight Vermonter]

They call them martyrs even if an army truck flips over.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

I've been out most of the afternoon here, ...sandrat has this posted:

Air Strike in Pakistan ‘Legitimate, Self-Defense,’ Pentagon Official Says

No mention of coalition casualities though.

[Straight Vermonter]

No new info but no mention of US casualties. I would expect them to say if there were casualties.

From CJTF-101 in Afghanistan:

Coalition forces repel militant attack in Afghanistan ends in Pakistan
Written by Bagram Media Center
Wednesday, 11 June 2008


BAGRAM AIR FIELD, Afghanistan (June 11, 2008) – Coalition forces were engaged by anti-Afghan forces in Konar province on Tuesday during an operation that had been previously coordinated with Pakistan.

Coalition forces began receiving small-arms and rocket-propelled grenade fire from an unknown number of anti-Afghan forces approximately 200 meters inside Konar province. Coalition forces returned fire in self-defense.

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 Gorparai checkpoint. 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.

An unmanned aerial system identified additional anti-Afghan forces joining the attack against the Coalition forces. While maintaining positive identification of the enemy, close-air support was then used by Coalition forces to gain fire superiority until the threat was eliminated.

At no time did Coalition ground forces cross into Pakistan.

The investigation of this incident is ongoing

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Looking back thru the Long War Journal...came across this:

Descent into Appeasement

*************************EXCERPT************************

By The LWJ EditorsMay 31, 2008 11:28 AM

Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the tribal areas. Map from PBS' Frontline. Click to view.

Written by Bill Roggio and Daveed Gartenstein-Ross for The Weekly Standard magazine.

The good news is that some politicians apparently do keep their promises. Immediately after being appointed Pakistan's prime minister earlier this year, Yousaf Raza Gilani promised negotiations with the Taliban, saying that his government was "ready to talk to all those who give up arms and adopt the path of peace." Regional officials echoed his sentiment. He has delivered. The bad news is that such negotiations are eroding Pakistan's security and creating an increasingly dangerous situation for Americans.

The trouncing of Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf's PML-Q party in the country's February elections signaled a repudiation of his internal policies and his alliance with the United States. Musharraf's approach to Pakistan's largely lawless tribal regions--havens for the Taliban and al Qaeda--swung clumsily erratically between mobilizing his forces and entering into unenforceable agreements that eroded his military credibility. Neither tactic did much good, but negotiating with terrorists was the more popular of the two failed policies.

It is not surprising then that Pakistan's new government launched a round of negotiations with the country's Islamic extremists. What was unexpected, though, was the scale of the negotiations. Talks have been opened and agreements entered with virtually every militant outfit in the country. But the government has done nothing to answer the problem of the past accords and is again accepting promises that it has no means of enforcing.

The Taliban violated each of the conditions of the now-infamous September 2006 Waziristan accords. It used the ceasefire as an opportunity to erect a parallel system of government complete
with sharia courts, taxation, recruiting offices, and its own police force. Al Qaeda in turn benefited from the Taliban's expansion, building what U.S. intelligence estimates as 29 training camps in North and South Waziristan alone. And, while even the Waziristan accords paid lip service to stopping cross-border attacks against Coalition forces in Afghanistan, the new negotiations often leave this consideration aside. As North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) governor Owari Ghani recently told the New York Times, "Pakistan will take care of its own problems, you take care of Afghanistan on your side."

The first in this new round of agreements was struck with the NWFP's Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (the TNSM or Movement for the Implementation of Mohammad's Sharia Law) on April 20 in the Malakand Division. The TNSM is led by Maulana Sufi Mohammed, who was imprisoned in 2002 for providing fighters to the Taliban in Afghanistan (as the TNSM continues to do to this day). The Pakistani government and the TNSM entered into a six-point deal in which the TNSM renounced attacks on Pakistan's government in exchange for the promise that sharia law would be imposed in Malakand. The government also freed Sufi Mohammed.

A month later, Pakistan inked a deal with the Taliban in the Swat district. Led by Mullah Fazlullah (Sufi Mohammed's son-in-law), they have been waging a brutal insurgency in the once-peaceful vacation spot. (More than 200 Pakistani soldiers and police have been killed since January 2007.) The 15-point agreement between the Pakistani government and the Swat Taliban stipulates that the military will withdraw its forces, and the government will allow the imposition of sharia law, permit Fazlullah to broadcast on his radio channel--which was previously banned--and help turn Fazlullah's madrassa into an "Islamic University."

Though the government extracted some concessions from the Taliban, they are so difficult to enforce that Pakistan will likely gain little more than the reintroduction of vaccination programs. (Fazlullah has campaigned against vaccinations in the past, describing them as a Western plot to make Pakistani men impotent.) The promise to close down training camps is certainly suspect.

This week, Pakistan negotiated a peace agreement with a Tehrik-i-Taliban leader in the Mohmand agency. Its terms are similar to the new accords signed with the TNSM and Swat Taliban.

[Straight Vermonter]

Little Neville Chamberlains can be found everywhere. You would think people would have learned Reagan’s maxim “trust but verify”.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

More:

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This strategy of accelerated appeasement only empowers groups with a history of violence who are devoted to undermining Pakistan's sovereignty. In addition to creating breathing space for extremists (since it is the militants who determine when an agreement is broken), the accords allow a greater flow of recruits to the training camps and further violence. At best, the politicians are shunting the problems down the road--and these problems will be larger by the time Pakistan is forced to confront them.

The new accords are also a threat to the United States. Baitullah Mehsud has told journalists that "jihad in Afghanistan will continue" regardless of negotiations, a sentiment echoed by other Taliban leaders. As U.S. forces in Afghanistan face increased cross-border attacks, Americans at home should be concerned about the increase in the risk of another catastrophic terrorist attack. The 9/11 Commission Report warned that a terrorist organization requires "time, space, and the ability to perform competent planning and staff work" in order to carry out a 9/11-like attack. Pakistan's new accords provide al Qaeda and its allies with the requisite time and space.

If another major act of terror hits the United States, it will almost certainly be traced back to the al Qaeda network in Pakistan. Far from addressing the situation, Pakistan's government is only increasing the dangers that we face.