Washington/Brussels (dpa) – Distrust between US and Pakistani military forces contributed greatly to NATO forces' accidental killing of 24 Pakistani troops last month, the US investigating officer said Thursday. Because of an “overarching lack of trust between the two sides,” the US and Pakistani forces did not share precise information about their positions and plans prior to the events of November 25-26 on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, US Air Force Brigadier General Stephen Clark told reporters. International forces in Afghanistan even withheld from Pakistani liaison officers the exact coordinates of the firefight as both sides scrambled to identify each other, Clark said. The United States and NATO began to release the results Thursday of their investigation into the killings. The probe found that NATO troops faced “intense” gunfire from Pakistani soldiers first, contradicting Islamabad's claims that Pakistani forces shared no blame in the deadly airstrike on its border post. The US Defense Department conceded that the inquiry had uncovered a series of miscommunications and “mistakes” by both sides. That led to “a misunderstanding about the true location of Pakistani military units,” the Pentagon said. “There was no intentional effort to target persons or places known to be part of the Pakistani military,” it said in a statement. “For the loss of life – and for the lack of proper coordination between US and Pakistani forces … – we express our deepest regret.” Clark, who investigated the killings, described in detail the belief by NATO forces that there were no Pakistani border posts on the ridge 3,000 metres above the Afghan village of Nawa, which was the target of the international forces' nighttime operation. When Pakistani forces started firing down onto NATO ground forces in the valley, NATO aircraft returned fire in the mistaken conclusion it was enemy fire, Clark said. The incident strained the already tense relations between Pakistan and the US, two uneasy allies in the fight against terrorism, an alliance that has frayed since US special forces killed terrorist leader Osama bin Laden in a secret operation in May in Pakistan. Pakistan accused NATO of intentionally killing its 24 soldiers, and has reacted by stopping NATO supplies from reaching landlocked Afghanistan and boycotting a subsequent international meeting on Afghanistan, held in Bonn, Germany. More than a dozen soldiers were wounded in the clash in the Mohmand tribal district, an area known to be used by Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters who infiltrate into Afghanistan to target NATO-led forces. When international forces reached Nawa village after the firefight, they uncovered “a substantial cache of weapons,” including material for improvised bombs, heavy machine-gun ammunition and rocket-propelled grenades, Clark said. Pakistani officials insisted that the attack was unprovoked and continued despite pleas for a ceasefire. Major General Ashfaq Nadeem, director general of military operations, this month spoke of a “pre-planned conspiracy.” Clark described the “evolving lack of trust” between Pakistan and the US, including a “perception from ISAF that the Pakistanis are unwilling to give or reticent to give full disclosure on all their border locations.” He said that ISAF forces have the impression that when they have shared specifics with the Pakistani military, “some of their operations have been compromised.” The information purposely withheld from the Pakistani liaison officers involved the exact coordinates of the firefight. The official who was communicating with Pakistani officials “had been told not to pass the coordinates, but to only give a general location,” Clark said. But even the general location description was wrong, Clark said. The ISAF officer staffing the coordination centre had configured his map incorrectly, so that the information he was allowed to pass on to the Pakistanis was off by 14 kilometres, Clark said. In advance of the nighttime operations, 1 kilometre inside the Afghanistan border, ISAF forces had checked with Pakistan's military to determine if there were border posts in the region. But no information had been forthcoming from the Pakistani side, Clark said. “The operational plan and communications during the incident substantiate the conclusion that the Pakistani forces were not knowingly targeted, and the action of our forces was legitimate,” the US Defence Department said in a statement. It argued that “appropriate force” was used. It said the investigation's findings have been shared with the Pakistani and Afghan governments. The Pakistani military, which refused to cooperate in the investigation, will study the allegations and respond on Friday, a spokesman said. Meanwhile, NATO said it has taken “immediate steps … to reduce the risk of similar incidents in the future,” while the US pledged to “learn from these mistakes.” But the Pentagon warned that there was a larger problem. “We cannot operate effectively on the border – or in other parts of our relationship – without addressing the fundamental trust still lacking between us,” the US said in a message to Islamabad. “We earnestly hope the Pakistani military will join us in bridging that gap.” dpa BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/jfNhL Tags: NATO, Pakistan, Troops, US Section: Latest News, North America, Pakistan
