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The US military has released footage from a unmanned aerial vehicle detailing the controversial June 10 battle against Taliban forces right on the Afghan-Pakistani border. The US military maintains it fired at Taliban forces, while the Pakistani government continues to maintain US airstrikes targeted an outpost manned by the Frontier Corps and killed Pakistani paramilitary troops. The US military said the clash began in Kunar province, less than 200 yards from the Pakistani border near the Garparai checkpoint. The fighting, which lasted for three hours, moved across the border as US warplanes pursued the Taliban as their retreated into Pakistan's...

Taliban vow to avenge US airstrike submitted 59 minutes ago TALIBAN militants on Thursday pledged to take revenge for the US airstrike that destroyed a Pakistani army post near the Afghan border and killed 11 paramilitary troops this week, reports a private TV channel. "We have the right to defend our country. Any aggression by NATO forces inside Pakistan will be responded with full force," said Dr Asad, a spokesman for Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan. The Pakistani border post came under fire in Mohmand Agency when US planes targeted Taliban fighters fleeing after an attack on Afghan and NATO forces late Tuesday....

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — The U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan released footage Thursday of a skirmish with militants that Pakistan claims resulted in an airstrike on one of its border posts that killed 11 of its troops. Pakistan has lodged a strong diplomatic protest, saying the bombing of the Gorparai post in the Mohmand frontier region on Tuesday was a "completely unprovoked and cowardly act." But Pakistani and U.S. officials have given widely differing accounts of an event that threatens to further sour relations between key allies in Washington's war on terror. To support its version, the coalition on Thursday took...

Pakistan decries 'cowardly' US raid The deaths threaten already fragile US-Pakistani ties [AFP] Pakistan has condemned US-led forces in Afghanistan for an "unprovoked and cowardly" air raid near the border that killed at least 11 Pakistani soldiers.   But the Pentagon offered a sharply different interpretation of events on Wednesday, saying US-led forces were acting in self-defence after they had come under fire. The deaths come at a tense moment in US-Pakistan relations and threaten the already fragile ties. Kamal Hyder, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Islamabad, said that the US and Pakistan had had a very strong relationship under the previous...

(Updates with fresh quotes, details and background) By David Morgan WASHINGTON, June 11 (Reuters) - Pakistan does not view a U.S. air strike that killed 11 Pakistani soldiers at a border post near Afghanistan as an intentional hostile act, Pakistan's ambassador to the United States said on Wednesday. Ambassador Husain Haqqani rejected U.S. assertions that the U.S. forces had coordinated with Pakistan as they mounted the strike during a counter-offensive against Islamist militants. But he also told Reuters the incident was not expected to cause Pakistan to reconsider its relationship with Washington despite strong protests in Islamabad, where the U.S....

WASHINGTON, June 11, 2008 – Defense Department officials called a U.S. air strike yesterday in Pakistan near the Afghanistan border “legitimate” and “self-defense,” and said they are investigating the attack with Pakistani officials. “Every indication we have at this point is that the actions that were taken by U.S. forces were legitimate, in that they were in self-defense after U.S. forces operating on the border of Pakistan in Afghanistan territory came under attack from hostile forces,” Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said in a news conference today. “In self-defense, they called in an air strike, which took out those forces...

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...

As I noted in the earlier post below, al-Qaeda has been retreating from a range of defeats in Iraq, Lebanon (and I forgot to mention Afghanistan which is over 75% pacified) and is being surrounded by allied forces. This has allowed allied forces to use intelligence to take out 3 key leaders in surgical strikes within Pakistan’s FATA region, with the permission of the Pakistan government. Well today it seems we targeted another AQ Leader in the area: A pilotless U.S. drone was suspected to have fired a missile into a Pakistani area on the Afghan border on Tuesday, but...

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - A pilotless U.S. drone was suspected to have fired a missile into a Pakistani area on the Afghan border on Tuesday, but there was no word on the target or casualties, a government official said.

Excerpt - ISLAMABAD -- (UPDATE) At least 10 Pakistani soldiers were killed and nine were wounded when a missile fired from Afghanistan hit their border post early on Wednesday, security officials told Agence France-Presse. The incident happened after fierce clashes between Pakistani paramilitary troops deployed in the Mohmand tribal region and Afghan forces who claimed the area was part of their territory, the Pakistani officials said. "Sometime after midnight a missile fired from the Afghan side struck our post resulting in the martyrdom of at least 10 soldiers including a commanding officer. Nine soldiers were wounded," one security official said....

The Afghan Army clashed with the Taliban in the Pakistani tribal agency of Mohmand on June 10. While initial reports indicated the US conducted a targeted airstrike against a Taliban or al Qaeda target in the tribal agency, the aircraft appear to have been supporting Afghan troops. Pakistani soldiers were reported to have been killed in the fighting. The fighting started after Afghan forces attacked a Taliban force as it attempted to cross the border. Between 10 and 13 Pakistani soldiers were killed after Afghan and US forces pursued Taliban forces fleeing into Pakistan. "The militants launched a cross-border attack...

The military official said the Pakistani troops were killed when NATO forces in Afghanistan unleashed a barrage of artillery into Pakistan in the area ...

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- Pakistan has expressed outrage at a U.S. airstrike in a disputed region along the Afghan border which it says killed 11 of its forces who were cooperating with the U.S.-led war on terror. A Pakistani soldier patrols the mountain areas of the Pakistan and Afghanistan border in Mohmand. The U.S. military has not released an official statement on the incident, but a U.S. official with knowledge of the reports told CNN that Tuesday's airstrike targeted suspected militants who had fled into Pakistan after conducting an ambush on the Afghan side of the border. The official said...

PESHAWAR (AFP) - Pakistan condemned a "cowardly" US air strike that killed 11 Pakistani troops near the Afghan border on Wednesday". The attack on a checkpost in Pakistan's volatile tribal zone was the first of its kind. A Pakistani army spokesman "condemned this completely unprovoked and cowardly act" and blamed the coalition for the "aerial attack" that destroyed a paramilitary post in the Mohmand tribal region, a statement said. It confirmed that 11 soldiers were killed including an officer. "The incident had hit at the very basis of cooperation and sacrifice with which Pakistani soldiers are supporting the coalition in...

KABUL, June 11 (Reuters) - The U.S. military said on Wednesday that an air and artillery raid which Pakistan said killed 11 of its soldiers on the Afghan border was aimed at Taliban militants and had been coordinated with Pakistan. "...Coalition forces informed the Pakistan Army that they were being engaged by anti-Afghan forces ...," the U.S. military said in a statement. It added that coalition forces were engaged by anti-Afghan forces during an operation "that had been previously coordinated with Pakistan". Pakistan earlier denounced the air strike as "unprovoked and cowardly", saying it killed 11 soldiers and undermined the...

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...