Updated on
Summary Pakistan said that US gave Pak soldiers the wrong location when asking for clearance to attack.
US officials gave Pakistan soldiers the wrong location when asking for clearance to attack militants along the border last weekend, Pakistani military officials said Friday. The strike resulted in the deaths of 24 soldiers and a major crisis in relations between Washington and Islamabad.The claim was the latest in a series by mostly anonymous officials in both countries trying to explain what happened before and during last weeks bombing of two Pakistani border checkpoints by US aircraft.NATO and America have expressed regret for the loss of lives, but have rejected Pakistani allegations it was a deliberate act of aggression.The incident has pushed already strained ties between Washington and Islamabad close to rupture, complicating American hopes of securing Pakistans help in negotiating an end to the Afghan war. In retaliation for the raid, Islamabad has already closed its western border to NATO supplies traveling into landlocked Afghanistan.A Pakistani military official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information confirmed that the Americans had provided his side with a location for the planned strike.However, he said, the information arrived late, Pakistan never cleared the strike, and the coordinates provided were incorrect anyway.Wrong information about (the) area of operation was provided to Pakistani officials a few minutes before the strike, he said. Without getting clearance from Pakistan side, the post had already been engaged by US helicopters and fighter jets.US officials at the border coordination center, where the two sides liaise over operations close to the frontier, had later apologized privately to Pakistani officials for initially providing wrong information and the subsequent engagement of the post without prior information, he said.The US and NATO have both launched investigations. Washington has not formally apologized, saying it would not be appropriate before an investigation into the incident is complete.
