NATO attack could lead to grave repercussions: Athar

By Saleem Mehsud

ISLAMABAD, Nov 28 : The Pakistan Army while expressing its disgust over NATO attacks in the Mohmand Agency in which 24 security forces personnel were martyred, has said that mere NATO’s apologies were neither enough nor acceptable and warned that the action can lead to serious consequences.

“Our future plans of action and decision over the issue of cross-border attack would be formulated jointly by the civil and military leadership of the country,” the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) spokesman Major General Athar Abbas said.

Athar said that mere NATO’s regret over the martyrdom of 24 security forces personnel was not enough.

He said that such incidents have happened in past that killed 72 soldiers and injured more than 250 troops in the last three years.

“The Saturday action of US led NATO forces in the Pak-Afghan bordering area can lead to utterly grave repercussions,” the ISPR spokesman warned.

He also denied reports that NATO forces in Afghanistan came under fire before launching a cross-border attack that led to the killing of 24 Pakistani soldiers.

“This is not true. They are making up excuses. What are their losses, casualties?” Earlier a report, citing Afghan and Western officials, had said that fire from a Pakistani military outpost into Afghanistan prompted the air strikes.

The military spokesman 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.”

In an interview on Sunday with British newspaper the Guardian, Athar Abbas said he did not believe ISAF or Afghan forces received fire from the Pakistani side. “I cannot rule out the possibility that this was a deliberate attack by ISAF,” said Abbas. “If ISAF was receiving fire, then they must tell us what their losses were.”

Pakistani army officials said the posts that were attacked were about 300 metres into Pakistani territory. ISAF officers, however, maintain that the border in that area is disputed.

Abbas told the Guardian that the firing lasted for over an hour, and that ISAF made “no attempt” to contact the Pakistani side. “This was a totally unprovoked attack. There are no safe havens or hideouts left there [for militants] in Mohmand,” he said.

“This was a visible, well-made post, on top of ridges, made of concrete. Militants don’t operate from mountaintops, from concrete structures.”

But a report in Monday’s Wall Street Journal — denied by Islamabad — said the NATO jets and helicopters responded to firing from a Pakistani post on the ill-defined Afghan border.

The article, which followed a similar report by the Guardian, cited three Afghan officials and one Western official as saying the air raid was called in to shield allied forces targeting Taliban fighters.

NATO and Afghan forces “were fired on from a Pakistani army base”, the unnamed Western official told the Wall Street Journal. “It was a defensive action.”

An early Saturday morning attack by NATO helicopters killed at least 24 security personnel and injured 12 soldiers on a Pakistani check post in Salala, which is located in the Tehsil Bayzai area of Mohmand Agency on the Pak-Afghan border.

The United States has been told by Pakistan’s military leadership to evacuate a logistically key airbase it operates in Balochistan – Shamsi Airbase – within 15 days. In addition, Pakistan’s fury was driven home with an official statement that it will shut down NATO supply routes operating through its territory – something that has happened for the first time, though supply routes have previously been temporarily blocked unofficially following similar attacks.