US and Pakistan enter the danger zone

[Bill Longley]

US and Pakistan enter the danger zone
By M K Bhadrakumar

The air strike by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) at the Pakistani military post at Salala in the Mohmand Agency on the Afghan-Pakistan border Friday night is destined to become a milestone in the chronicle of the Afghan war.

Within hours of the incident, Pakistan's relations with the US began nose-diving and it continues to plunge. NATO breached the ''red line''.

What is absolutely stunning about the statement issued by Pakistan's Defence Committee of the Cabinet (DDC), which met Saturday at Islamabad under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Yousuf Gilani is that it did not bother to call for an inquiry by the US or NATO into the air strike that resulted in the death of 28 Pakistani soldiers.

Exactly what happened in the fateful night of Friday - whether the NATO blundered into a mindless retaliatory (or pre-emptive) act or ventured into a calculated act of high provocation - will remain a mystery. Maybe it is no more important to know, since blood has been drawn and innocence lost, which now becomes the central point.

At any rate, the DDC simply proceeded on the basis that this was a calculated air strike - and by no means an accidental occurrence. Again, the DDC statement implies that in the Pakistan military's estimation, the NATO attack emanated from a US decision. Pakistan lodged a strong protest at the NATO Headquarters in Brussels but that was more for purpose of 'record', while the "operative" part is directed at Washington.

The GHQ in Rawalpindi would have made the assessment within hours of the Salala incident that the US is directly culpable. The GHQ obviously advised the DDC accordingly and recommended the range of measures Pakistan should take by way of what Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kiani publicly called an "effective response."

The DDC took the following decisions: a) to close NATO's transit routes through Pakistani territory with immediate effect; b) to ask the US to vacate Shamsi airbase within 15 days; c) to "revisit and undertake a complete review" of all "programs, activities and cooperative arrangements" with US, NATO and the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), including in "diplomatic, political and intelligence" areas; d) to announce shortly a whole range of further measures apropos Pakistan's future cooperation with US, NATO and ISAF.

No more doublespeak
The response stops short of declaring the termination of Pakistan's participation in the US-led war in Afghanistan (which, incidentally, is the demand by Pakistani politician Imran Khan who is considered to be close to the Pakistani military circles). In essence, however, Pakistan is within inches of doing that.

The closure of the US-NATO transit routes through Pakistan territory may not immediately affect the coalition forces in Afghanistan, as it has built up reserve stocks that could last several weeks. But the depletion of the reserves would cause anxiety if the Pakistani embargo is prolonged, which cannot be ruled out.

Therefore, the Pakistani move is going to affect the NATO operations in Afghanistan, since around half the supplies for US-NATO troops still go via Pakistan. An alternative for the US and NATO will be to rely more on the transit routes of the Northern Distribution Network [NDN]. But the US and NATO's dependence on the NDN always carried a political price tag - Russia's cooperation.

Moscow is agitated about the US regional policies. The NATO intervention in Libya caused friction, which deepened the Russian angst over the US's perceived lack of seriousness to regard it as equal partner and its cherry-picking or "selective partnership".

Then, there are other specific issues that agitate Moscow: US's push for "regime change" in Syria, the US and NATO appearance in the Black Sea region, continued deployment of US missile defense system, and the push for US military bases in Afghanistan. In addition, Moscow has already begun circling wagons over the US "New Silk Road" initiative and its thrust into Central Asia.

The future of the US-Russia reset remains uncertain. Washington barely disguises its visceral dislike of the prospect of Vladimir Putin's return to the Kremlin following the presidential election in March next year. Short of bravado, the US and NATO should not brag that they have the NDN option up their sleeve in lieu of the Pakistani transit routes. The Pakistani military knows this, too.

Equally, the closure of the Shamsi airbase can hurt the US drone operations. Pakistan has so far turned a blind eye to the drone attacks, even conniving with them. Shamsi, despite the US's insistence that drone operations were conducted from bases in Afghanistan, surely had a significant role in terms of intelligence back-up and logistical support.

By demanding that the US vacate Shamsi, Pakistan is possibly shifting its stance on the drone attacks; its doublespeak may be ending. Pakistan is ''strengthening'' its air defense on the Afghan-Pakistan border. Future US drone operations may have to be conducted factoring in the possibility that Pakistan might regard them as violations of its air space. The US is on slippery ground under international law and the United Nations Charter.

A Persian response
The big issue is how Pakistan proposes to continue with its cooperation with the US-NATO operations. Public opinion is leaning heavily toward dissociating with the US-led war. The government's announcement on the course of relations with the US/NATO/ISAF can be expected as early as next week. The future of the war hangs by a thread.

Unlike during previous phases of US-Pakistan tensions Washington lacks a "Pakistan hand" to constructively engage Islamabad. The late Richard Holbrooke, former special AfPak envoy, has become distant memory and special representative Marc Grossman has not been able to step into his shoes.

Admiral Mike Mullen has retired as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and is now a 'burnt-out case' embroiled in controversies with the Pakistani military. Central Intelligence Agency director David Petraeus isn't terribly popular in Islamabad after his stint leading the US Central Command, while his predecessor as spy chief and now Defense Secretary Leon Panetta always remained a distant figure.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is a charming politician, but certainly not cut out for the role of networking with the Pakistani generals at the operational level. She could perhaps offer a healing touch once the bleeding wound is cleansed of dirt, stitched up and bandaged. And US President Barack Obama, of course, never cared to establish personal chemistry with a Pakistani leader, as he would with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

Now, who could do that in Washington? The horrible truth is - no one. It is a shocking state of affairs for a superpower with over 100,000 troops deployed out there in the tangled mountains in Pakistan's vicinity. There has been a colossal breakdown of diplomacy at the political, military and intelligence level.

Washington trusted former Pakistani ambassador Hussein Haqqani almost as its own special envoy to Islamabad, but he has been summarily replaced under strange circumstances - probably, for the very same reason. At the end of the day, an intriguing question keeps popping up: Can it be that Pakistan is simply not interested anymore in dialoguing with the Obama administration?

The heart of the matter is that the Pakistani citadel has pulled back the bridges leading to it from across the surrounding crocodile-infested moat. This hunkering down is going to be Obama's key problem. Pakistan is boycotting the Bonn Conference II on December 2. This hunkering down should worry the US more than any Pakistani military response to the NATO strike.

The US would know from the Iranian experience that it has no answer for the sort of strategic defiance that an unfriendly nation resolute in its will to resist can put up against an 'enemy' it genuinely considers 'satanic'.

The Pakistani military leadership is traditionally cautious and it is not going to give a military response to the US's provocation. (Indeed, the Taliban are always there to keep bleeding the US and NATO troops.)

Washington may have seriously erred if the intention Friday night was to draw out the Pakistani military into a retaliatory mode and then to hit it with a sledgehammer and make it crawl on its knees pleading mercy. Things aren't going to work that way. Pakistan is going to give a "Persian" response.

The regional situation works in Pakistan's favor. The recent Istanbul conference (November 2) showed up Russia, China, Pakistan and Iran sharing a platform of opposition to the US bases in Afghanistan in the post-2014 period.

The Obama administration's grandiose scheme to transform the 89-year period ahead as 'America's Pacific Century' makes Pakistan a hugely important partner for China. At the very minimum, Russia has stakes in encouraging Pakistan's strategic autonomy. So does Iran.

None of these major regional powers wants the deployment of the US missile defense system in the Hindu Kush and Pakistan is bent on exorcising the region of the military presence of the US and its allies. That is also the real meaning of Pakistan's induction as a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which is on the cards.

Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.

 

[Areesh]

Good read.

 

[alibaz]

In Fog of War, Rift Widens Between U.S. and Pakistan
WASHINGTON — The NATO air attack that killed at least two dozen Pakistani soldiers over the weekend reflected a fundamental truth about American-Pakistani relations when it comes to securing the unruly border with Afghanistan: the tactics of war can easily undercut the broader strategy that leaders of both countries say they share.
The murky details complicated matters even more, with Pakistani officials saying the attack on two Pakistani border posts was unprovoked and Afghan officials asserting that Afghan and American commandos called in airstrikes after coming under fire from Pakistani territory. NATO has promised an investigation.

The reaction inside Pakistan nonetheless followed a now-familiar pattern of anger and tit-for-tat retaliation. So did the American response of regret laced with frustration and suspicion. Each side’s actions reflected a deepening distrust that gets harder to repair with each clash.

The question now, as one senior American official put it on Sunday, is “what kind of resilience is left” in a relationship that has sunk to new lows time after time this year — with the arrest in January of a C.I.A. officer, Raymond Davis, the killing of Osama bin Laden in May and the deaths of so many Pakistani soldiers.

In each of those cases, Pakistan had reason to feel that the United States had violated its sovereignty. Even if circumstances on the ground justified the American actions, they have nonetheless made it difficult to sustain political support inside Pakistan for the strategic cooperation that both countries acknowledge is vital to winning the war in Afghanistan. “Imagine how we would feel if it had been 24 American soldiers killed by Pakistani forces at this moment,” Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat from Illinois, said on “Fox News Sunday.” The rift is one result of the United States’ two-pronged strategy in Afghanistan, which relies on both negotiating and fighting to end the war.

The latest breach in relations came only five weeks after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton led a senior American delegation to Pakistan to deliver a blunt warning to the country’s leaders to intensify pressure on extremists carrying out attacks into Afghanistan, while at the same time urging them to help bring more moderate members of the Taliban to the negotiating table.

Mrs. Clinton called the administration’s approach “fight, talk, build,” meaning the United States and its allies would continue to attack militants in Afghanistan and beyond, seek peace talks with those willing to join a political process and build closer economic ties across the region. All are essential to any hope of peace and stability in Afghanistan, and all rely on Pakistan. That has forced the two countries into a strategic alliance whose tactics seem to strain it over and over again.

Mrs. Clinton’s diplomacy — bolstered by Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and David H. Petraeus, the director of the C.I.A. — appeared to smooth out the roughest edges in relations, according to officials from both countries.

Recognizing that heightened military activity along the mountainous border with Afghanistan increases the risks of deadly mistakes, American and Pakistani forces have in recent weeks tried to improve their coordination. That cooperation had been largely suspended after the killing of Bin Laden, which President Obama ordered without informing the Pakistani authorities.

Just last Friday, Pakistan’s military commander, Army Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, met Gen. John R. Allen, the commander of coalition forces in Afghanistan, in Rawalpindi to discuss “measures concerning coordination, communication and procedures” between the Pakistan Army, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force and the Afghan Army, “aimed at enhancing border control on both sides,” according to a statement by the Pakistani military.

“Then you have an incident that takes us back to where we were before her visit,” said Vali Nasr, a former deputy to the administration’s regional envoy, Richard C. Holbrooke, and now a professor at Tufts University.

The problem, Mr. Nasr said, is that the United States effectively has not one but two strategies for winning the war in Afghanistan.

While the State Department and the White House believe that only a negotiated political solution will end the war, American military and intelligence commanders believe that they must maximize pressure on the Taliban before the American military withdrawal begins in earnest before 2014. The military strategy has led to the intensified fighting in eastern Afghanistan along the border with Pakistan, increasing tensions. A major offensive last month involving 11,000 NATO troops and 25,000 Afghan fighters in seven provinces of eastern Afghanistan killed or captured hundreds of extremists, many of them using Pakistan as a base.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/28/w...tter-allies-in-fog-of-war.html?_r=1&ref=world

 

[shbaziz]

Bro ab tumne article pad hi liya to uska conclusion bata do warna itna lengthy article padke to mera mind

The conclusion in authors words is as follows;

Washington may have seriously erred if the intention Friday night was to draw out the Pakistani military into a retaliatory mode and then to hit it with a sledgehammer and make it crawl on its knees pleading mercy. Things aren't going to work that way. Pakistan is going to give a "Persian" response.


By Persian response he means;

The heart of the matter is that the Pakistani citadel has pulled back the bridges leading to it from across the surrounding crocodile-infested moat. This hunkering down is going to be Obama's key problem. Pakistan is boycotting the Bonn Conference II on December 2. This hunkering down should worry the US more than any Pakistani military response to the NATO strike.

The US would know from the Iranian experience that it has no answer for the sort of strategic defiance that an unfriendly nation resolute in its will to resist can put up against an 'enemy' it genuinely considers 'satanic'.

Moreover Pakistan, China, Russia and Iran share the same viewpoint about US bases in Afghanistan

 

[Al Bhatti]

In each of those cases, Pakistan had reason to feel that the United States had violated its sovereignty. Even if circumstances on the ground justified the American actions, they have nonetheless made it difficult to sustain political support inside Pakistan for the strategic cooperation that both countries acknowledge is vital to winning the war in Afghanistan. “Imagine how we would feel if it had been 24 American soldiers killed by Pakistani forces at this moment,” Senator Richard J. Durbin, Democrat from Illinois, said on “Fox News Sunday.”

US boots would have been inside Pakistan without any doubt and would have created a buffer zone of some kilometers all along the afghan border on the Pakistani side, Just like what "Israel" had done by created a buffer zone in southern Lebanon for many years after returning the land to Lebanon. They all are nation loving and patriot to their country and would leave no stone un-moved if their men (civilian or military) gets even scratched by a foreign force or nation.

 

[indushek]

A useless article written by a Indian oldie

What kind of position till now have you held in the capacity of a diplomat or atleast in IFS in any country?? The oldie u call useless has served as a diplomat in more than a dozen countries with some important names there.

 

[alibaz]

After Strike in Pakistan, Rage and Damage Control

KABUL, Afghanistan — The political fallout from a NATO airstrike in Pakistan that was operated out of Afghanistan and killed at least two dozen Pakistani soldiers became clearer on Sunday, as Pakistan seethed over the attack and the United States scrambled to contain the damage to an already frayed relationship.
Afghan officials, meanwhile, worried that they would bear the immediate brunt of Pakistan’s wrath and that the Pakistanis would follow through on threats to withdraw from an international conference on Afghanistan’s security and development that is scheduled for Dec. 5.

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called Pakistan’s foreign minister, Hina Rabbani Khar, to discuss the situation, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, talked with Pakistan’s supreme army commander, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. General Kayani spent much of the day leading a funeral service in Peshawar, Pakistan, for soldiers who had been killed and visiting others who were wounded in the attack on Saturday.

In her talk with Mrs. Clinton, Ms. Khar conveyed the “deep sense of rage felt across Pakistan,” according to a government statement. Demonstrations expressing anger at the United States broke out in major cities across the country.

The episode “negates the progress made by the two countries on improving relations and forces Pakistan to revisit the terms of engagement,” Ms. Khar was quoted as saying.

An investigation is under way to determine how the attack occurred, said NATO officials, who declined to discuss it until the inquiry was completed. Diplomats in Afghanistan who were briefed on the preliminary findings said that a joint NATO and Afghan force operating along the border came under sustained fire late Friday or early Saturday — it is not clear from whom — and called in air support.

The coalition forces tried to contact the Pakistani military on the other side of the border. It is unclear whom they reached, but the coalition forces believed they were free to fire back, and the aircraft struck positions in Pakistan, according to diplomats.

The Pakistani government said 24 people had been killed, but accounts near the scene in the Mohmand tribal region said the toll was as high as 28.

The cross-border strike not only resulted in more deaths than previous attacks, but it also occurred at a particularly tense moment in relations between Pakistan and the United States, and between Pakistan and Afghanistan, said diplomats and analysts in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“There have been incidents like this before, incidents where three or four Pakistanis regrettably died, but 25 people or more, that’s on a different scale,” said a Western diplomat in Kabul who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the subject.

The relationship between the United States and Pakistan, already damaged last winter when a C.I.A. contractor killed two Pakistanis, plummeted after the cross-border mission that killed Osama bin Laden in May.

The Pakistani government also faces a delicate domestic political situation. The Pakistani population is strongly anti-American, and the government must take a strong stand when its troops are killed. If it fails to do so, it risks losing popular support and, with it, the ability to fight extremists like the Pakistani Taliban.

On Sunday, dozens of protesters belonging to Jamaat-e-Islami, which is considered the country’s most disciplined Islamist political party, demonstrated in the eastern city of Lahore. Zikrullah Mujahid, a Jamaat-e-Islami leader, said: “The so-called war against terrorism is not our war. It is a war of America and NATO.”

In Karachi, thousands of protesters gathered outside the United States Consulate and shouted “Down with America!” Reuters reported.

In Ghotki, in Sindh Province, the opposition leader Imran Khan, who has opposed the fight against extremists in the federally administered tribal areas, urged the government to pull out of “America’s war.”

Meanwhile, in Kabul, the Afghan government said it was concerned about Pakistan’s threat to shun the conference on Afghanistan’s future in Bonn, Germany. Aimal Faizi, a spokesman for President Hamid Karzai, urged Pakistan not to punish Afghanistan for NATO’s actions.

A spokesman for the Afghan Foreign Ministry, Janan Mosazai, described the conference as important “in terms of the vision the Afghan government will be sharing with the international community, with the region, in the 10 years after transition.”

The conference, to which more than 50 countries are sending representatives, was organized to showcase the international commitment to Afghanistan’s security and to reassure Afghans and potential foreign investors about the nation’s future.

If Pakistan, which is widely seen as a seedbed for the Afghan insurgency, refuses to participate, those goals could be undermined, leaving little doubt that the fighting will continue, according to Western diplomats and military officials.

Mr. Mosazai said the Afghan government had been contacted by Pakistan’s ambassador in Kabul, but he did not elaborate. But Pakistani officials said they had strongly protested to their Afghan counterparts about the “use of Afghan territory against Pakistan” and urged the government to prevent similar attacks.

In a recent consultative assembly, Mr. Karzai promised that Afghan soil would never be used to attack neighboring countries. Although he was speaking about the strategic partnership that he is negotiating with the United States, the issue has resonated in the region, where both Iran and Pakistan fear the American military presence in Afghanistan.

Mr. Faizi, the president’s spokesman, said the government stood by that commitment, and the assembly, with more than 2,000 participants, endorsed it.

“These bases will not be used against any neighboring country,” he said. “That’s the advice of the Afghan people and, of course, the president. We stand by that.”

Alissa J. Rubin reported from Kabul, and Salman Masood from Islamabad, Pakistan. Steven Lee Myers contributed reporting from Washington.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/28/w...ries-after-attacks-in-pakistan.html?ref=world

 

[T-Rex]

A splendid analysis of the entire crisis, the last paragraph is the most significant part and that can be viewed as a logical conclusion.

 

[S-A-B-E-R->]

no conclusion article

yup its a good artical because of having no conclusion i feel it tuched every topic and went well in a less provocative way

 

[bdslph]

actually i am waiting to see what Pakistan do all in all for what the NATO has done

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Did US walk into a trap Friday night?

An unusually perceptive regular reader of my blogs wrote back to point out that the NATO air strikes on Pakistan took place on 26/11. But if his/her suggestion was that US and NATO were signalling to India on the very ‘anniversary’ of the Mumbai attacks, I won’t quite see it that way. The point is, the timing of the NATO attack was very awkward - even by US standards. My intuition is that the NATO air strike was not a ’stand-alone’ affair and most likely had a background to it. I get the gut feeling that the US blundered into a Pakistani trap.

Pakistan is now boycotting the Bonn Conference on Afghanistan next Monday. The US’s game plan to invite 90 countries to the lovely little town on the Rhine where Beethoven was born (and I lived two happy years) to showcase an Afghan stabilization plan post-2014 justifying the US military bases in the Hindu Kush and obtain international legitimacy for that and thereupon silence the voice of the regional opposition to that ghastly idea is, well, in a spot of trouble.

I don’t know who may have said it first, but without Pakistan (and Taliban), Bonn Conference will really be like Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark. Now, with the Istanbul conference (November 2) where the grand strategy to initiate the US’s New Silk Road and provide a OSCE-type regional security umbrella for AfPak and Central Asia already ending up as farce, US is at a dead end. There ain’t going to be any Afghan peace process, nor a regional consensus on post-2014 and all that is certain is that the US drawdown of troops hasn’t yet been called off.

What a royal mess-up! Richard Holbrooke must be turning in his grave. And, to boot it, if Pakistan shuts down the NATO’s transit routes for a month or so, there is going to be panic in Brussels. What is the alternative? The Northern Distribution Network through Russian territory? But that involves Russia, which is of course a seasoned practitioner of international diplomacy, especially under FM Sergey Lavrov.

I just pondered over two clippings while sipping my morning cup of tea and watching the wet coconut trees swaying in the wind as the north-east monsoon relentlessly embraced Thiruvananthapuram for the past 3 days. Actually, it began the same night of the NATO attack on Pakistan and so far took the lives of 4 poor fishermen who never came back from the deep sea…

Coming back to Afghanistan, I pondered over a statement by Lavrov alleging there is no ‘transparency’ in the US’s policies in Afghanistan and calling into question the need of western military bases in that country. What struck me was Lavrov’s observation that Moscow won’t settle for selective cooperation with US, but would like to go the whole hog and prefer a “clear understanding of both countries’ plans for Central and South Asia.”

Hm. I haven’t heard anything like this since the Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev mooted the doctrine of collective security for Asia some 35 years ago. That is saying a lot - that Moscow doesn’t like the way US is going about in Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Bangladesh, Nepal, and the Indian Ocean. In short, Moscow would like to know more about the South Asian vector of ‘America’s Pacific Century’ so that it can “coordinate efforts” with the US!

What struck me even more is how foul the air has become in Russian-American relations. Vladimir Putin bluntly alleged in Moscow yesterday that “representatives of some foreign states” are interfering in Russia’s domestic politics and rallying opposition to his candidacy in the upcoming presidential election in March. No need to second-guess which country he meant, because Putin added, “It would be better if they used this money to pay off their national debt.”

Now, that is an unkind cut, you may say. But Putin’s remark can be a signpost for the GHQ in Rawalpindi to shut down the NATO transit routes for a few weeks till they could hear someone in Brussels weeping audibly. No Sir, no way can the NDN replace the Pakistani transit routes.

Did US walk into a trap Friday night? - Indian Punchline

 

[somebozo]

Pakistan says NATO ignored its pleas during attack

Pakistan says NATO ignored its pleas during attack - Arab News

By CHRIS BRUMMITT | AP
Published: Nov 28, 2011 11:36 Updated: Nov 28, 2011 11:36

ISLAMABAD: The NATO air strikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers went on for almost two hours and continued even after Pakistani commanders had pleaded with coalition forces to stop, the army claimed Monday in charges that could further inflame anger in Pakistan.

NATO has apologized for the deaths in Saturday’s incident and promised a full investigation. The coalition has yet to give its side of the story, but unnamed Afghan officials have said that a joint Afghan-NATO force on the Afghan side of the border received incoming fire from the direction of the Pakistani posts, and called in air strikes.

Ties between Pakistan and the United States were already deteriorating before the deadly attack and have sunk to new lows since, delivering a major setback to American hopes of enlisting Islamabad’s help in negotiating an end to the 10-year-old Afghan war.

Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said the Pakistani troops at two border posts were the victims of unprovoked aggression. He said the attack lasted almost two hours and that commanders had contacted NATO counterparts while it was going on, asking “they get this fire to cease, but somehow it continued.”

The strikes have added to popular anger in Pakistan against the US-led coalition presence in Afghanistan.

Many in the army, parliament, general population and media already believed that the US and NATO are hostile to Pakistan and that the Afghan Taleban are not the enemy. Pakistani army accounts of the incident have strengthened this narrative, showing the level of mistrust between Islamabad and the coalition forces.

Abbas dismissed Afghanistan’s claims that the joint Afghan-NATO troops were fired upon first.

“At this point, NATO and Afghanistan are trying to wriggle out of the situation by offering excuses,” he said. “Where are their casualties?”

The poorly defined, mountainous border has been a constant source of tension between Pakistan and the United States.

NATO officials have complained that insurgents fire from across the frontier, often from positions close to Pakistani soldiers who have been accused of tolerating or supporting the militants.

Hours after the attacks on Saturday, Pakistan closed its western border to trucks delivering supplies to NATO troops in Afghanistan, demanded that the US abandon an air base inside Pakistan used to operate drone strikes and said it will review its cooperation with the US and NATO.

However, a complete breakdown in the relationship between the United States and Pakistan is considered unlikely. Pakistan relies on billions of dollars in American aid, and the US needs Pakistan to push Afghan insurgents to participate in peace talks.

© 2010 Arab News

---------- Post added at 08:15 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:14 PM ----------


Afghan troops sought deadly NATO airstrike


Afghan troops sought deadly NATO airstrike - Arab News

By AGENCIES
Published: Nov 27, 2011 21:46 Updated: Nov 27, 2011 21:46

PESHAWAR, Pakistan: Afghan troops who came under fire while operating near the Pakistan border called in the NATO air strikes that killed 28 Pakistani soldiers at two posts along the frontier, Afghan officials said Sunday.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said it's unclear who attacked the Afghan troops before dawn Saturday, but that the soldiers were fired upon from the direction of the Pakistani border posts that were hit in the strikes. The border area where the soldiers were operating contains a mix of Pakistani forces and Islamist militants.

Thousands gathered outside the American Consulate in Karachi on Sunday to protest against the NATO air strike.

A Reuters reporter at the scene said the angry crowd shouted "Down with America." One young man climbed on the wall surrounding the heavily fortified compound and attached a Pakistani flag to barbed wire.

"America is attacking our borders. The government should immediately break ties with it," said Naseema Baluch, a housewife attending the Karachi demonstration.

"America wants to occupy our country but we will not let it do that.”

Many Pakistanis believe their army is fighting a war against militants that only serves Western interests and hurts their country.

"US stabs Pakistan in the back, again," said a headline in the Daily Times, reflecting fury over the attack in Pakistan, a regional power seen as critical to US efforts to stabilize neighboring Afghanistan.

The incident has driven to new lows the United States' already tattered alliance with Pakistan, a relationship that is vital to winding down the 10-year-old Afghan war. The Pakistan Army has said the alleged NATO attack was unprovoked and has insisted there wasn't militant activity near the border posts in the Mohmand tribal area. Outraged by the strike, Islamabad closed its border to trucks delivering supplies to coalition troops in Afghanistan and demanded the US vacate a base used by American drones within 15 days.

NATO has said it is likely that its aircraft carried out the attack that caused Pakistani casualties and is conducting an investigation to determine the details. The Pakistan-Afghanistan border is disputed and not marked in many areas, adding to the difficulty.

On Sunday, Pakistan army chief Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kayani attended the funerals of the victims, including a major, as the US sought to minimize fallout from the crisis, which plunged Washington's already troubled relationship with Islamabad to an all-time low.

The relationship took a major hit after the covert US raid that killed Osama bin Laden in a Pakistani town in May.

Tensions could rise further if militants unleash attacks against hundreds of trucks carrying supplies to US-led forces in Afghanistan that were backed up at Pakistani border crossings Sunday after Islamabad closed the frontier.

Suspected militants destroyed around 150 trucks and injured drivers and police a year ago after Pakistan closed one of its Afghan border crossings to NATO supplies for about 10 days in retaliation for a US helicopter attack that accidentally killed two Pakistani soldiers.

The situation could be more dire this time because Pakistan has closed both its crossings. Nearly 300 trucks carrying coalition supplies are now backed up at Torkham in the northwest Khyber tribal area and Chaman in southwestern Balochistan province. Last year, Pakistan only closed Torkham.

"We are worried," said driver Saeed Khan, in Torkham. "This area is always vulnerable to attacks.

An official closely involved with the Afghan war said there will likely be no immediate negative effect from Pakistan's decision to close its border crossings.

Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar told US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Sunday that the alleged NATO attack negated all progress in improving the damaged alliance between the two countries.

She told Clinton in a phone call that the alleged NATO attack was unacceptable, showed complete disregard for human life and sparked rage within Pakistan, according to a press release issued by the Pakistani foreign minister's office.

Islamabad also protested to the Afghan government, saying it should prevent NATO from using its territory to attack Pakistan, according to another statement from the Pakistani foreign minister's office.

An Afghan official denounced the protest as "baseless," saying NATO operates in Afghanistan under a UN mandate that is approved by Pakistan.

In addition to closing its border crossings, Pakistan gave the US 15 days to vacate Shamsi Air Base in Balochistan. The US uses the base to service drones targeting Al-Qaeda and Taleban militants in Pakistan's tribal region when they cannot return to their bases inside Afghanistan because of weather conditions or mechanical difficulty, US and Pakistani officials said.

© 2010 Arab News

Pakistani protesters burn representation of US flag to condemn NATO helicopters attacks on Pakistani troops, in Multan, Pakistan, on Sunday. (AP Photo/Khalid Tanveer)

Protesters against a NATO cross-border attack burn the US flag in Lahore on Sunday. (Reuters/Mohsin Raza)

Relatives and residents on Sunday carry the flag-draped coffin of soldier Najeebullah, one of 24 killed in a NATO cross-border attack one day earlier, for his funeral in Charsadda in northwest Pakistan. (Reuters

 

[TARIQ BN ZIYAAD]

Assalam alaikum

this attack was deliberate

TARIQ

 

[somebozo]

Assalam alaikum

this attack was deliberate

TARIQ

By killing brave men of KP, they dont expect to win their support against Taliban and AQ in Afghanistan.
Time to retaliate!

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Following up on MK Bhadrakumar's comments on Russia extracting a price for continuing to allow the NDN to function:

On Monday, meanwhile, Russia's ambassador to NATO said the country may not let NATO use its territory to supply troops in Afghanistan if the alliance doesn't seriously consider its objections to a U.S.-led missile shield for Europe.

Last week, Russia threatened to deploy its own ballistic missiles on the EU border to counter the move. NATO says the shield is meant to thwart an attack from a rogue state such as Iran, that it poses no threat to Russia and that the alliance will go ahead with the plan despite Moscow's objections.

If NATO doesn't give a serious response, "we have to address matters in relations in other areas," Russian news services reported Dmitri Rogozin as saying. He said Russia's cooperation on Afghanistan may be an area for review, the news services reported.
NATO Attack Widens Chasm With Pakistan - WSJ.com