Pakistan stops NATO supplies after raid kills up to 28
26 Nov 2011 23:28
* Pakistan PM denounces attack on outposts
* Supply trucks stopped en route to Afghanistan
* NATO aircraft likely responsible for deaths - spokesman (Adds Vieter and Dempsey spokesman comments)
By Shams Momand
YAKKAGHUND, Pakistan, Nov 26 (Reuters) - NATO helicopters and fighter jets attacked two military outposts in northwest Pakistan on Saturday, killing as many as 28 troops and plunging U.S.-Pakistan relations deeper into crisis.
Pakistan shut down NATO supply routes into Afghanistan - used for sending in nearly half of the alliance's land shipments - in retaliation for the worst such incident since Islamabad uneasily allied itself with Washington following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
Islamabad also said it had ordered the United States to vacate a drone base in the country, but a senior U.S. official said Washington had received no such request and noted that Pakistan had made similar eviction threats in the past, without following through.
NATO and U.S. officials expressed regret about the deaths of the Pakistani soldiers, indicating the attack may have been an error; but the exact circumstances remained unclear.
"Senior U.S. civilian and military officials have been in touch with their Pakistani counterparts from Islamabad, Kabul and Washington to express our condolences, our desire to work together to determine what took place, and our commitment to the U.S.-Pakistan partnership which advances our shared interests, including fighting terrorism in the region," said White House national security council spokesman Tommy Vieter.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar spoke by telephone, as did General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Pakistani Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani.
The NATO-led force in Afghanistan confirmed that NATO aircraft had probably killed Pakistani soldiers in an area close to the Afghan-Pakistani border.
"Close air support was called in, in the development of the tactical situation, and it is what highly likely caused the Pakistan casualties," said General Carsten Jacobson, spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
He added he could not confirm the number of casualties, but ISAF was investigating. "We are aware that Pakistani soldiers perished. We don't know the size, the magnitude," he said.
Pakistan's Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani said the killings were "an attack on Pakistan's sovereignty", adding: "We will not let any harm come to Pakistan's sovereignty and solidarity."
Pakistan's Foreign Office said it would take up the matter "in the strongest terms" with NATO and the United States, while army chief Kayani said steps would be taken to respond "to this irresponsible act".
"A strong protest has been launched with NATO/ISAF in which it has been demanded that strong and urgent action be taken against those responsible for this aggression."
Two military officials said up to 28 troops had been killed and 11 wounded in the attack on the outposts, about 2.5 km (1.5 miles) from the Afghan border. The Pakistani military said 24 troops were killed and 13 wounded.
The attack took place around 2 a.m. (2100 GMT) in the Baizai area of Mohmand, where Pakistani troops are fighting Taliban militants. Across the border is Afghanistan's Kunar province, which has seen years of heavy fighting.
"Pakistani troops effectively responded immediately in self-defence to NATO/ISAF's aggression with all available weapons," the Pakistani military statement said.
The commander of NATO-led forces in Afghanistan, General John R. Allen, offered his condolences to the families of Pakistani soldiers who "may have been killed or injured".
Dempsey's spokesman, Colonel David Lapan, could not confirm the closure of the Pakistani border crossing to trucks carrying supplies for ISAF forces. However, he noted that "if true, we have alternate routes we can use, as we have in the past".
POORLY MARKED
Around 40 troops were stationed at the outposts, military sources said. Two officers were reported among the dead. "They without any reasons attacked on our post and killed soldiers asleep," said a senior Pakistani officer, requesting anonymity.
The border is often poorly marked, and Afghan and Pakistani maps have differences of several kilometres in some places, military officials have said.
However, Pakistani military spokesman Major-General Athar Abbas said NATO had been given maps of the area, with Pakistani military posts identified.
"When the other side is saying there is a doubt about this, there is no doubt about it. These posts have been marked and handed over to the other side for marking on their maps and are clearly inside Pakistani territory."
The incident occurred a day after Allen met Kayani to discuss border control and enhanced cooperation.
A senior military source told Reuters that after the meeting that set out "to build confidence and trust, these kind of attacks should not have taken place".
BLOCKED SUPPLIES
Pakistan is a vital land route for nearly half of NATO supplies shipped overland to its troops in Afghanistan, a NATO spokesman said. Land shipments account for about two thirds of the alliance's cargo shipments into Afghanistan.
Hours after the raid, NATO supply trucks and fuel tankers bound for Afghanistan were stopped at Jamrud town in the Khyber tribal region near the city of Peshawar, officials said.
The border crossing at Chaman in southwestern Baluchistan province was also closed, Frontier Corps officials said.
A meeting of the cabinet's defence committee convened by Gilani "decided to close with immediate effect NATO/ISAF logistics supply lines," according to a statement issued by Gilani's office.
The committee decided to ask the United States to vacate, within 15 days, the Shamsi Air Base, a remote installation in Baluchistan used by U.S. forces for drone strikes which has long been at the centre of a dispute between Islamabad and Washington.
The meeting also decided the government would "revisit and undertake a complete review of all programmes, activities and cooperative arrangements with US/NATO/ISAF, including diplomatic, political, military and intelligence".
A similar incident on Sept 30, 2010, which killed two Pakistani service personnel, led to the closure of one of NATO's supply routes through Pakistan for 10 days. NATO apologised for that incident, which it said happened when NATO gunships mistook warning shots by Pakistani forces for a militant attack.
Relations between the United States and Pakistan were strained by the killing of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden by U.S. special forces in Pakistan in May, which Pakistan called a flagrant violation of sovereignty.
Pakistan's jailing of a CIA contractor and U.S. accusations that Pakistan backed a militant attack on the U.S. embassy in Kabul have added to the tensions.
"This will have a catastrophic effect on Pakistan-U.S. relations. The public in Pakistan are going to go berserk on this," said Charles Heyman, senior defence analyst at British military website Armedforces.co.uk.
Other analysts, including Rustam Shah Mohmand, a former ambassador to Afghanistan, predicted Pakistan would protest and close the supply lines for some time, but that ultimately "things will get back to normal". (Additional reporting by Bushra Takseen, Saud Mehsud, Jibran Ahmad and Saeed Achakzai in Pakistan, Tim Castle in London, Warren Strobel in Washington and Hamid Shalizi and Christine Kearney in Afghanistan;
Writing by Augustine Anthony, Chris Allbritton and Emma Graham-Harrison; Editing by Andrew Roche and David Stamp)
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Thousands protest at U.S. consulate in Pakistan against attack
KARACHI, Pakistan |
(Reuters) - Thousands of people gathered outside the U.S. consulate in the city of Karachi on Sunday to protest against a NATO cross-border air attack that killed 24 Pakistani troops.
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 on barbed wire.
(Reporting by Imtiaz Shah)
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ANALYSIS-U.S., Pakistani co-dependence may prevent rupture
27 Nov 2011 19:07
A boy holds party flags of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) as he attends a demonstration against a NATO cross-border attack in Karachi November 27, 2011. REUTERS/Athar Hussain
By Arshad Mohammed
WASHINGTON, Nov 27 (Reuters) - Pakistan and the United States depend on one another too much to allow the deaths of two dozen Pakistani soldiers in airstrikes by NATO forces on Saturday to cause a definitive rupture.
But the incident, the latest in a series of embarrassments this year to bedevil the relationship between two ostensible allies, will only aggravate the mistrust between the countries, and will require quick diplomatic work to contain.
Analysts and Western officials who track the relationship said a speedy, thorough investigation to find out what happened, establish responsibility and make amends is vital, although any reconciliation may be harder to achieve if NATO forces conclude the Pakistani side started the fight.
"They still have a great deal of co-dependence," said Shuja Nawaz, an authority on the Pakistani military at the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington. "The United States needs Pakistan until it wraps up kinetic operations in Afghanistan."
The United States plans to have most troops out of Afghanistan by the end of 2014.
"Pakistan, of course, is still fairly heavily dependent on U.S. financial and military support," Nawaz said. "But the way things have been going this past year, it's one event after another."
All the details of what happened in the latest incident, in Pakistan's Mohmand tribal agency, are not yet publicly known.
NATO helicopters and fighter jets based in Afghanistan attacked two Pakistan military outposts on Saturday, killing 24 Pakistani soldiers in what Islamabad called an unprovoked assault.
A Western official and a senior Afghan security official on Sunday said that NATO and Afghan forces came under fire from across the border with Pakistan before NATO aircraft attacked the Pakistani forces.
EXTREMELY MURKY
An early test of how much the U.S.-Pakistani relationship has been hurt may come from how well the sides cooperate with one another and with the Afghan authorities to establish precisely what happened on the border.
The key questions include who fired first and from where; why NATO and Pakistani forces appear to have been unable to communicate so as to prevent the Pakistani deaths; and whether NATO helicopters knew they had entered Pakistani territory.
"All of this is extremely murky and needs to be investigated," said an Obama administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity.
"Our goal today is ... that the investigation gets mounted in a way that is confidence-building on all sides," the official added.
Pakistan shut down NATO supply routes into Afghanistan -- used to send in nearly half of the alliance's land shipments -- in retaliation for the incident, the worst such attack since Islamabad uneasily allied itself with Washington following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
Islamabad also said it would ask U.S. personnel to vacate a Pakistani base used to launch drone attacks, a threat it has made before without following through.
The NATO attack was the latest perceived provocation by the United States, which infuriated Pakistan's powerful military with a unilateral U.S. special forces raid that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in May.
That raid also cost Pakistan much goodwill among U.S. politicians who questioned why the United States provides so much military and economic assistance to a country where bin Laden lived with impunity. Many Republican presidential candidates have asked the same question.
According to a U.S. Congressional Research Service tally released this year, the United States set aside some $22.01 billion in aid for Pakistan over the last decade, of which $14.62 billion was security-related and the rest economic.
Other alliance-straining events over the past 15 months included a Sept. 30, 2010 incident in which NATO forces killed two Pakistani service personnel, leading Pakistan to cut off NATO's vital ground supply route for 10 days.
On Jan. 27, a CIA contractor killed two Pakistani men he said were trying to rob him in Lahore, undermining ties between the U.S. and Pakistani intelligence services.
An in September, the then top U.S. military officer accused Pakistani intelligence of backing violence against U.S. targets including a Sept. 13 attack on the U.S. embassy in Kabul.
LAST STRAW?
Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen said Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) had supported militants known as the Haqqani network, which he described as a "veritable arm" of the ISI.
"Is this the last straw? (I) hope not. I believe both governments also hope not," said retired Ambassador Teresita Schaffer, a fellow at the Brookings Institution who served as a U.S. diplomat in Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
While there have been suggestions Pakistan could seek to improve its ties to China as a strategic counterweight to the United States, analysts dismissed this idea.
Islamabad receives significant amounts of military hardware from Beijing and their armed forces are close but Schaffer said the United States is a source of two things Beijing does not provide: top-flight weaponry and extensive cash assistance.
Even if there is no radical rupture, relations are unlikely to improve quickly.
"The U.S.-Pakistan relationship appears destined to lurch from crisis to crisis unless and until the two sides can reach some kind of understanding on the way forward in Afghanistan," said Lisa Curtis of the Heritage Foundation think tank.
With NATO planning to intensify its operations in eastern Afghanistan next year to try to cut off insurgent routes from Pakistan, Curtis said "the situation is likely to get worse before it gets better."
(Editing by Bill Trott)
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ANALYSIS-Attack hands Pakistan a chance to squeeze U.S.
28 Nov 2011 22:47
(Repeats with no changes to text)
* Public fury with America will spur robust response
* Pakistan will seek greater say in post-U.S. Afghanistan
* Room for manoeuvre limited by relationship of mutual dependence
* Ultimate lever could be influence over militant groups
By Chris Allbritton
ISLAMABAD, Nov 28 (Reuters) - Pakistan's military has been handed a rare opportunity to press its strategic ambitions in neighbouring Afghanistan after a cross-border NATO attack that killed 24 of its soldiers over the weekend.
Fury over the incident at home, where anti-American sentiment runs high, makes it likely that both the army chief, General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, and the civilian government will play hardball with their ostensible ally, the United States.
"The Pakistan military is clearly very angry at the turn of events and the army's top leadership is under tremendous pressure from middle-ranking offices and junior officers to react," said Hasan Abbas at the U.S. National Defense University's College of International Security Affairs.
That pressure will spur the military to flex its muscles in diplomatic manoeuvring with Washington in the run-up to the exit of U.S. combat troops from Afghanistan in 2014.
Indeed, on Monday, the military's spokesman threatened to drastically reduce cooperation on peace efforts in Afghanistan, which could complicate U.S. President Barack Obama's plans to bring the war there to an end.
Analysts said Pakistan will seek concessions from the United States as its price for Saturday's attack, in which NATO helicopters and fighter jets strafed two military outposts in northwest Pakistan, close to the Afghan border.
The Pakistani military said 24 soldiers were killed and 13 wounded. NATO called it a tragic, unintended incident.
The concessions are likely to include giving Pakistan a greater say in the political settlement to end the war that would cement a role for Islamabad's allies in a future Kabul government.
A YEAR OF BUST-UPS
"From the military's point of view, here is a perfect opportunity to try to go on the offensive for a change," said Kamran Bokhari, vice president for Middle Eastern and South Asian affairs at STRATFOR, a U.S.-based intelligence consultancy.
"The Pakistanis are going to lay their terms out," Bokhari said. "They're going to say ... whatever you're doing on that side of the border, we need more input into that and you need us to get you out of there and provide a safe exit."
The border incident is the latest in a year of bust-ups between Islamabad and Washington -- uneasily allied in the war on militancy since the September 11 attacks on the United States a decade ago.
First there was the jailing of a CIA contractor for shooting dead two Pakistanis in the city of Lahore. Then there was the secret U.S. commando raid inside Pakistan that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, and then came U.S. accusations that Pakistan was involved in attacks on American targets in Afghanistan.
Pakistan's room for manoeuvre is usually limited by its mutually dependent relationship with Washington, on which it depends for financial and military support.
"Pakistan is in no position to do something that might lead to open hostilities, to war with the U.S.," said Shaukat Qadir, a retired brigadier general and analyst.
But this time Islamabad feels justly aggrieved and has several options to pressure the United States.
INFLUENCE WITH MILITANTS
Already since Saturday's incident it has announced that it will review all military and diplomatic ties as well as intelligence sharing, and it has demanded the vacation of Shamsi air base in Baluchistan, where some CIA drones used against militants in the tribal areas of Pakistan are reportedly based.
It has also shut down supply routes through Pakistan that account for almost half of the provisions shipped overland to U.S. allied troops fighting in Afghanistan.
Following a similar incident in September 2010 that killed two Pakistani troops, the routes were shut for 10 days.
However, NATO has since pushed to expand a northern route into Afghanistan through Russia and the central Asian countries, which reduces the impact of a blockade through Pakistan.
Pakistan's ultimate leverage lies in its influence over militant groups, especially the Taliban-linked Haqqani network, which pioneered suicide bombing in Afghanistan and has become one of the most serious threats to NATO troops there.
Pakistan has long-standing ties with the Haqqanis stretching back to the war against the Soviet Union in the 1980s, and - despite official denials - it is widely suspected that it still supports them.
After an attack on the U.S. embassy in Kabul in September, the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, called the Haqqani network a "veritable arm" of Pakistan's intelligence service.
Despite that, in October, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton publicly called on Pakistan to help include the Haqqanis in peace talks with the Afghan Taliban.
Emboldened by the latest events, Pakistan might actually start leaning more heavily on the network as a proxy guerilla force to further its own interests in a post-U.S. Afghanistan. It almost certainly won't be trying to bring them to the negotiating table.
"I think the message has been conveyed loud and clear," Qadir said. "We're not going to do anything to facilitate anything until this problem is solved."
But there's only so far Pakistan can lean on the Haqqanis. Any attack in the near term by the group against targets in Afghanistan will be seen as retaliation, even if Pakistan didn't have anything to do with it.
Pakistan's been here before. In the 1990s, it was almost labelled by the United States as a state-sponsor of terrorism for its support of militant groups. Such a declaration today would immediately trigger sanctions Pakistan can't afford.
"Right now, the Pakistanis are playing victims," Bokhari said. "Do they want to go from being victims to being accused of sponsoring a terrorist attack on U.S. forces?" (Additional reporting by William MacLean in London and Emma Graham-Harrison in Kabul; Editing by John Chalmers and Raju Gopalakrishnan)
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‘Errors’ by US officers killed Pakistani soldiers: Report
US officers gave incorrect information to their Pakistani counterparts to seek clearance regarding the Nato airstrike that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers on November 26, said a report by The Telegraph on Saturday.
The report quoted a Pakistani military official, while talking to The Sunday Telegraph, saying that the US gave wrong information to the border coordination unit about a suspected Taliban position before the attack while seeking clearance from the Pakistani side to carry out the attack.
“The strike had begun before we realised the target was a border post,” he said. “The Americans say we gave them clearance but they gave us the wrong information.”
The report said that the American pilots were confident that the site was a Taliban base as it was checked with a Pakistani officer that there were no friendly troops present in the area.
According to the report, the Nato troops realised that they had attacked a Pakistani checkpost instead of a Taliban hideout only after dawn.
Pakistan’s relations with the US and Nato have turned cold following an “unprovoked” Nato attack on a Pakistani check post on the Pak-Afghan border which left at least 24 soldiers dead and 12 injured. Pakistan says that the attack was unprovoked, and Nato continued their attack even as Pakistani forces requested them to stop.
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Forces may feel fuel pinch even after supply resumes
As Afghan-bound Nato oil trucks while away, the government is mulling imposing a permanent ban on export of locally-produced petroleum products, except jet fuel.
Export of jet fuel, however, will be allowed if Nato agrees to pay all applicable duties to Pakistan.
The country has been exporting petroleum products to Nato forces in Afghanistan, exempted of all duties including the general sales tax (GST) and petroleum levy, since 2002. The supplies were made through the US Defence Energy Supply Company.
The petroleum ministry has moved a summary to the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet, scheduled to meet on Friday, seeking a permanent ban on export of locally-produced fuels including petrol and diesel, sources told The Express Tribune.
The ministry has also proposed that export of other locally-produced products be allowed if Nato forces pay complete duties applicable in Pakistan. Sources said that the commerce ministry and the Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) had also supported the ban because petroleum products were being dumped in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.
Surplus jet fuel
Secretary Petroleum Ijaz Chaudhry confirmed that the summary has been moved, citing the shortage of petroleum products in the country.
“However, we have proposed that there should be no exemption of duties on export of [jet fuel] JP-1 and JP-8,” sources said.
Since Afghan-bound cargo uses Pakistan’s infrastructure, Nato should pay duties, sources said, adding that the country had surplus stock of jet fuel and therefore resumption of its export was being proposed.
Exporting to local Afghans
Meanwhile exporters have approached the petroleum ministry, asking for the ban to be lifted.
Claiming they bring foreign exchange into the country, suppliers say export of locally-produced petroleum products to Afghan consumers, not Nato forces, should be allowed.
“The ministry of petroleum has asked oil exporters to work out the economics of exporting to local consumers in Afghanistan,” sources said.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 8th, 2011.
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