Pakistan: NATO attack kills 20 Pakistani soldiers

[Lord Zentei]

Headline now on CNN

Islamabad (CNN) -- NATO helicopters opened fire on a Pakistani checkpoint, killing 20 soldiers, two senior Pakistani military officials said Saturday.

The officials said 12 soldiers were wounded in the attack late Friday in the Mohmand Agency area, one of seven districts of the volatile region bordering Afghanistan. The death toll could rise as many of the injuries are critical, they said.

The officials did not want to be named because they are not allowed to talk to the media.

NATO has said it is aware of "an incident," but has not released any details.

"We are still gathering information," said Jason Wagner, a spokesman for the NATO-led military mission.

Pakistan has stopped the flow of NATO supplies in Khyber Agency bordering Afghanistan in response to the attack, said Jamil Khan, a senior government official in the area.

About 50 containers and trucks carrying supplies for NATO were stopped at the town of Jamrud in Khyber Agency on Saturday morning, Khan said.

They were ordered to turn back toward Peshawar, the provincial capital of northwestern province Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, he said.

A second route from Pakistan into Afghanistan, the Chaman border crossing in Balochistan province, is still open to NATO supply trucks.

Roughly 40% of nonlethal NATO supplies and fuel go through Pakistan, with hundreds of supply trucks using the two routes into Afghanistan.

If confirmed as a NATO attack, Friday's incident could be the deadliest for Pakistani soldiers involving NATO since a U.S. airstrike in June 2008, which Pakistan said killed 11 of its forces who were cooperating with the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan.

That airstrike, also in Mohmand Agency, prompted the government in Islamabad to summon the U.S. ambassador and lodge an official protest.

NATO commander in Afghanistan, Marine Gen. John R. Allen, met with the Pakistani Chief of Army Staff Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani on Thursday, the Pakistani military said.

"The visiting dignitary remained with him for some time and discussed measures concerning coordination, communication and procedures between Pakistan army, ISAF and Afghan army, aimed at enhancing border control on both sides," a Pakistani military statement said.

Pakistani officials who spoke with CNN expressed anger about Friday's attack.

[Thanas]

Last I checked, Pakistani soldiers wear uniforms and fly a flag. Didn't these?

Or is this just another example of stupid trigger happy idiots?

[Zaune]

Last I checked, Pakistani soldiers wear uniforms and fly a flag. Didn't these?

Or is this just another example of stupid trigger happy idiots?

NATO forces might have been attacking insurgents close to the border checkpoint and misidentified the target, or maybe a missile malfunctioned somehow and went off-course. Shit happens, especially in time of war.

[Lord Zentei]

Or the Pakistani soldiers might have fired first? Anything is possible at this stage.

In any case, Pakistan is reviewing the relationship with NATO, and the casualties are up to 24 killed and 13 wounded, and it was two checkpoints, not one.

Video in the link.

(CNN) -- Pakistan will reassess its relationship with the United States, NATO and the International Security Assistance Force in the wake of Saturday morning's attack by NATO forces on two military checkpoints inside Pakistani territory along its border with Afghanistan, the prime minister's office said late Saturday.

"The prime minister will take the Parliament into confidence on the whole range of measures regarding matters relating to Pakistan¹s future cooperation with US/NATO/ISAF, in the near future," Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani's office said in a statement.

The attack by NATO helicopters killed 24 soldiers and wounded 13 others in Mohmand Agency, one of seven districts in the volatile region bordering Afghanistan, the Pakistani foreign ministry and military said Saturday in a statement.

"It's a huge incident," said Syed Masood Kausar, governor of northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, told reporters in Islamabad.

Many of the wounded were in critical condition, military officials said. The officials did not want to be identified because they are not allowed to talk to the news media.

A spokesman for the NATO-led ISAF, Gen. Carsten Jacobson, said close air support had been called in during an operation with Aghan national security forces and ISAF in the rugged border area of the east of Pakistan, where the border is not always clear.

"A technical situation developed on the ground that caused the force to call for close air support and it is this close air support that highly likely caused the soldiers that perished on the Pakistani side," he told CNN. He said he could not discuss casualty numbers, since "they can only come at the moment from the Pakistani side."

"This incident has my highest personal attention and my commitment to thoroughly investigate it to determine the facts," U.S. Marine Gen. John R. Allen, NATO's commander in Afghanistan, said Saturday.

He also offered his "sincere and personal heartfelt condolences" to the families of any Pakistan Security Forces members killed or injured.

The spokesman for the Pakistan military, Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, condemned the strike. "There is absolutely no justification for this unprovoked and indiscriminate attack," Abbas told CNN. "There is no confusion about the locations of these check posts. They are well inside the border, they are clearly marked and NATO has their location on their maps."

Abbas rejected any NATO claim that NATO aircraft were pursuing insurgents who were crossing into Pakistan.

"There are no more safe havens in Mohmand. We have cleared them. They would have nowhere to hide."

He told CNN there had been "no militant activity, to the best of our knowledge," in the area at the time, and that the border posts targeted were old and marked, and were supposed to be identified on the maps of NATO pilots operating near the border. Two of the dead were officers, he said.

"Let's wait for an investigation," he said. "Only then, the real truth will come out. But, on the face of it, we have lost 24 of our soldiers and officers, which is highly tragic and is not acceptable."

He cited similar incidents in the past for having resulted in "a great resentment" toward the NATO forces.

After a meeting Saturday of the Defense Committee of the Cabinet, the prime minister's office released a news release condemning the attack and saying it had "gravely dented the fundamental basis of Pakistan's cooperation with NATO/ISAF against militancy and terror."

The committee added that it decided to ask the United States to vacate the Shamsi Airbase within 15 days. The base, in southwest Pakistan, is reportedly used for CIA drone strikes.

A similar demand was made in June, when Pakistan's defense minister called for the United States to leave the airbase used to launch drone attacks against Taliban and al Qaeda targets on the border with Afghanistan, the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan reported then.

"We have told them (the U.S. officials) to leave the airbase," Defense Minister Ahmed Mukhtar told reporters about Shamsi Airbase in Balochistan, APP reported.

Mukhtar added that trust between the United States and Pakistan had eroded in the aftermath of the May 2 killing of Osama bin Laden by U.S. special forces acting inside the town of Abbottabad, Pakistan, without Islamabad's knowledge or permission.

But the Americans never left, according to embassy sources in Islamabad and Pakistani military officials.

In a statement, Gilani said he "strongly condemned the NATO/ISAF attack on the Pakistani" checkpoint.

The matter is being taken up by the Foreign Ministry "in the strongest possible terms" with NATO and the United States, the statement from his office said.

U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan, Cameron Munter, said: "I regret the loss of life of any Pakistani servicemen, and pledge that the United States will work closely with Pakistan to investigate this incident."

In response to the attack, Pakistan closed NATO's two supply routes into Afghanistan, Pakistani military and intelligence officials said.

NATO trucks have used the routes, in Khyber Agency and Balochistan, to supply U.S. and international forces fighting in Afghanistan.

About 50 containers and trucks carrying supplies for NATO were stopped at the town of Jamrud in Khyber Agency on Saturday morning, said Jamil Khan, a senior government official in Khyber Agency, bordering Afghanistan.

They were ordered to turn back toward Peshawar, the provincial capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, he said.

A second route from Pakistan into Afghanistan, the Chaman border crossing in Balochistan province, had been open to NATO supply trucks earlier Saturday but was shut in the afternoon, the military and intelligence officials said.

Roughly 40% of nonlethal NATO supplies and fuel go through Pakistan, with hundreds of supply trucks using the two routes into Afghanistan.

In addition, the spokesman for the government of Balochistan, Kamran Asad, said the provincial government had banned the entry of NATO supplies.

About 130,000 troops are deployed in Afghanistan with ISAF, 90,000 of them American, according to NATO figures.

Pakistani politicians responded angrily to the incident in Mohmand.

"This is the time to be united as a nation and to punch NATO with a fist," said Ahmed Khan Bahadur, a provincial lawmaker from the Awami National Party, the ruling party of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. "NATO could never dare if we were united."

Former international cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan, who heads the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party, said it was time for Pakistan to pull out of the U.S.-led "war on terror."

The incident could be the deadliest for Pakistani soldiers involving NATO since a U.S. airstrike in June 2008, which Pakistan said killed 11 of its forces who were cooperating with the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan.

That airstrike, also in Mohmand Agency, prompted the government in Islamabad to summon the U.S. ambassador and lodge an official protest.

NATO's Allen had met Thursday with the Pakistani Chief of Army Staff Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, the Pakistani military said.

"The visiting dignitary remained with him for some time and discussed measures concerning coordination, communication and procedures between Pakistan army, ISAF and Afghan army, aimed at enhancing border control on both sides," a Pakistani military statement said.

Meanwhile, a commander of Afghanistan's eastern border police said an operation in the area bordering Mohmand Agency on Friday night killed 10 insurgents.

"Last night, there was an operation there inside Afghanistan," he said. "Pakistani and Afghan Taliban have got a broad presence there as there are forests and difficult terrain. That's why there was an operation."

The military activity was in Afghanistan's Kunar province, he said, adding he was unaware of any NATO attacks on the other side of the border.

[Block]

Last I checked, Pakistani soldiers wear uniforms and fly a flag. Didn't these?

Or is this just another example of stupid trigger happy idiots?

NATO forces might have been attacking insurgents close to the border checkpoint and misidentified the target, or maybe a missile malfunctioned somehow and went off-course. Shit happens, especially in time of war.

Also hasn't been uncommon for Pakistani troops to provide covering fire for insurgents fleeing back across the border, so who knows.

[weemadando]

The story coming out from the NATO side that I heard on the Beeb not long ago was that it was a SpecOps team who came under fire while on a mission in A'stan from a position where they'd taken fire from on previous occasions. They requested permission to engage (I assume they had to request this as the firing position was in Pakistan) and then engaged (at some point with air support you'd assume).

Like Block said, there's been so many cases of fire being exchanged between "official" parties on both sides that hte only thing notable here is that one side brought gunships to the party and won.

[Lord Zentei]

And now, from everyone's favourite fair and balanced news network, the Pakistani government has apparently told NATO to GTFO of a drone airbase in retaliation.

Pakistan's government has ordered the U.S. to "vacate" an air base used for suspected drone attacks, in retaliation for a NATO strike that allegedly killed two-dozen Pakistani soldiers, Fox News has confirmed.

The demand marked the latest reprisal out of Pakistan, as the U.S. and NATO allies scramble to investigate the incident. Islamabad had already ordered the country's border crossings into Afghanistan closed, blocking off NATO supply lines, after the strike. The government issued the air base demand, and pledged a "complete review" of its relationship with the U.S. and NATO, following an emergency military meeting chaired by Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani.

Pakistan's Defense Committee condemned the attack in a written statement, saying the strike was "violative of international law and had gravely dented the fundamental basis of Pakistan's cooperation" with NATO against terrorists.

"The attack on Pakistan Army border posts is totally unacceptable and warrants an effective national response," the statement said.

The government urged the U.S. to leave the Shamsi Air Base within 15 days. The U.S. is suspected of using the facility in the past to launch armed drones and observation aircraft. Pakistan made a similar demand over the summer, though officials reportedly claimed the CIA had already suspended its use of the base as a staging ground for armed drones months earlier.

"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," the White House said in a statement Saturday.

Still, the tone of the Pakistani government's statement Saturday underscored the depth of the potential fallout after Pakistan accused NATO aircraft of firing on two army checkpoints and killing 24 soldiers. The incident early Saturday quickly exacerbated tensions between the two countries and threatened to escalate into a standoff more severe than one last year after a similar but less deadly strike.

Last year, Pakistan closed the Torkham border crossing to NATO supplies for 10 days after U.S. helicopters accidentally killed two Pakistanis. On Saturday, Pakistan went further, closing both of the country's border crossings into landlocked Afghanistan.

A short stoppage may have little effect on the war effort, but could have deadly consequences. During last year's dispute, militants took advantage of the impasse to launch attacks against stranded or rerouted trucks carrying NATO supplies.

With 24 dead in the pre-dawn incident Saturday, U.S. officials expressed regret and vowed to launch an investigation. If confirmed, it would be the deadliest friendly fire incident by NATO against Pakistani troops since the Afghan war began a decade ago.

"This incident has my highest personal attention and my commitment to thoroughly investigate it to determine the facts," said Gen. John Allen, the top commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

"My most sincere and personal heartfelt condolences go out to the families and loved ones of any members of Pakistan Security Forces who may have been killed or injured."

A statement said NATO leadership remains "committed" to improving security ties with Pakistan.

In a statement by the Department of Defense and Department of State Secretaries Clinton and Panetta said they hae both been monitoring the reports of the cross-border incident and offered their condolences.

They also offered their full support of NATO's intention to investigate immediately.

The statement also said that Secretary Clinton, Gen. Dempsey and Gen. Allen each called their Pakistani counterparts and that Ambassador Munter met with Pakistani government officials in Islamabad.

The statement stressed that the U.S. diplomatic and military leaders made clear the importance of the U.S.-Pakistani partnership, "which serves the mutual interests of our people."

The leaders "pledged to remain in close contact with their Pakistani counterparts going forward as we work through this challenging time."

Brig. Gen. Carsten Jacobson, spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force, told Fox News that the air support was called in by ground forces near the border consisting of Afghan and coalition troops. Jacobson said the air support "highly likely caused the Pakistani casualties," and said it is in everybody's interest to quickly investigate the incident.

"This is an incident that obviously has implications that reach far beyond the military side, so an investigation was started straight away," he told Fox News on Saturday. He said insurgents are the only ones who would benefit from a potential conflict.

U.S. Ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter also acknowledged the claims that Pakistani soldiers had been killed.

"I regret the loss of life of any Pakistani servicemen, and pledge that the United States will work closely with Pakistan to investigate this incident," Munter said.
U.S.-Pakistani relations have lurched from one diplomatic standoff to the next since the U.S. raid that killed Usama bin Laden in May in a Pakistani military town.

Before retiring, outgoing Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen in September publicly accused elements of Pakistan's spy agency of helping the militant Haqqani network in attacks against the U.S. and its allies.

Most recently, the Pakistani ambassador to the U.S. resigned amid claims he engineered a memo to Washington asking for its help in reining in the military in exchange for a raft of pro-American policies. He has denied any connection to the memo, but was replaced earlier this week by democracy activist Sherry Rehman.

The latest incident triggered a new round of problems between the two countries.

Gilani told reporters he summoned Munter to protest the alleged NATO attack, according to a Foreign Ministry statement. It said the attack was a "grave infringement of Pakistan's sovereignty" and could have serious repercussions on Islamabad's cooperation with NATO. Pakistan has also lodged protests in Washington and NATO headquarters in Brussels, it said.

A Pakistani customs official told The Associated Press that he received verbal orders Saturday to stop all NATO supplies from crossing the border through Torkham in either direction. The operator of a terminal at the border where NATO trucks park before they cross confirmed the closure.
Saeed Ahmad, a spokesman for security forces at the other crossing in Chaman in southwest Pakistan, said that his crossing was also blocked following orders "from higher-ups."

The U.S., Pakistani, and Afghan militaries have long wrestled with the technical difficulties of patrolling a border that in many places is disputed or poorly marked.
Saturday's incident took place a day after a meeting between NATO's Gen. Allen and Pakistan army chief Gen. Kayani in Islamabad to discuss border operations.

The checkpoints that were attacked had been recently set up and were intended to stop Pakistani Taliban militants holed up in Afghanistan from crossing the border and staging attacks, said two local government administrators.

The Pakistani military has blamed Pakistani Taliban militants and their allies for killing dozens of security forces in such cross-border attacks since the summer. Pakistan has criticized Afghan and foreign forces for not doing enough to stop the attacks, which it says have originated from the eastern Afghan provinces of Kunar and Nuristan. The U.S. has largely pulled out of these provinces, leaving the militants in effective control of many areas along the border.

The U.S. helicopter attack that killed two Pakistani soldiers on Sept. 30 of last year took place south of Mohmand in the Kurram tribal area. A joint U.S.-Pakistan investigation found that Pakistani soldiers fired at the two U.S. helicopters prior to the attack, a move the investigation team said was likely meant to notify the aircraft of their presence after they passed into Pakistani airspace several times.

Senior U.S. diplomatic and military officials eventually apologized for the attack, saying it could have been prevented with greater coordination between the U.S. and Pakistan. Pakistan responded by reopening the border crossing.

[weemadando]

What? RAGHEADISLAMUSLIMOFACISTS not immediately throwing themselves onto the nearest train and exploding themselves in retaliation but instead acting diplomatically? I SMELL THE CALIPHATE BEHIND THIS.

Is this really that surprising? They kick out a US drone base - no doubt one of the one's linked to the CIA's insane "well, they were probably terrorists" targeting program. HOLY SHIT. OUTRAGE AND SCANDAL. And now - Democrats, are they actually killing our country? OH MY GOD THERE'S ONE BEHIND YOU WITH A KNIFE SHOOT HIM!

[Lord Zentei]

weemadando, WTF?

Anyway, I posted the link from Fox because I had not yet found the same story elsewhere. Here's one from the BBC. It also summarizes the downturn in relations over the past year or so:

30 Sept 2010: Nato helicopters kill two Pakistani soldiers, prompting nearly two-week border closure in protest
22 April 2011: Supplies to Nato forces in Afghanistan halted for three days in protest over drone attacks
2 May: US announces Bin Laden's death and says Pakistan not warned of raid
2 June: Top US military chief Adm Mike Mullen admits "significant" cut in US troops in Pakistan
10 July: US suspends $800m of military aid
22 Sept: Outgoing US Adm Mullen accuses Pakistan of supporting Haqqani militant group in Afghanistan; denied by Pakistan

Looks like people have a lot of fences to mend, if they want that partnership to continue at all. I don't get the impression that the US or NATO in general have any sort of plan to deal with this either, nor what to do if Pakistan terminates the relationship.

Pakistan has buried 24 of its troops who were killed in a Nato airstrike at a checkpoint on the Afghan border.

Army chief General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani led mourners in funeral prayers at military headquarters in the north-western city of Peshawar.

The incident on Saturday has heightened already tense relations between Pakistan and the US and Nato.

Nato has apologised, calling it a "tragic unintended incident", and is investigating what happened.

Nato chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen said he had written to Pakistan's Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to "make it clear that the deaths of Pakistani personnel are as unacceptable and deplorable as the deaths of Afghan and international personnel".

It follows a joint statement by US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who offered their condolences for the loss of life, backed the investigation into the incident and stressed the "importance of the US-Pakistani partnership, which serves the mutual interests of our people".
'Special forces mission'

Pakistan has reacted angrily to the attack, which took place at two remote border posts in Pakistan's tribal district of Mohmand in the early hours of Saturday morning.

Prime Minister Gilani called it a "grave infringement of Pakistan's sovereignty".

A meeting of the cabinet's defence committee, convened by Mr Gilani, said it had decided to cut key supply lines to Nato in Afghanistan. Reports later appeared to confirm that Nato traffic was not being allowed through Pakistan's two border crossings with Afghanistan, at Torkham and Chaman.

The committee has also asked the United States to vacate, within 15 days, the Shamsi air base, which the US military has used to launch drones - although the BBC's Orla Guerin in Islamabad notes that Pakistan has made a similar demand before and the base may already be empty.

The committee further said it would "revisit and undertake a complete review of all programmes, activities and co-operative arrangements with US/Nato/Isaf, including diplomatic, political, military and intelligence".

Pakistan's government also summoned the US ambassador.
Fresh blow

The night-time attack took place at the Salala checkpoint, about 1.5 miles (2.5 km) from the Afghan border, at around 02:00 on Saturday morning local time (21:00 GMT Friday).

The Pakistani army said helicopters and fighter aircraft hit two border posts, killing 24 people and leaving 13 injured. Local officials said the two posts were about 300m apart on a mountain top.

Pakistani officials said there had been no militant activity in the area, and most of the Pakistani soldiers were asleep. They also said Nato had the grid references of the posts and therefore should not have fired.

Military sources told the BBC's Quentin Sommerville in Paktika province in Afghanistan that a US-Afghan special forces mission had been in the area, where they believed a Taliban training camp was operating.

They said the mission came under fire from a position within Pakistan, and they received permission from the headquarters of Nato's Isaf mission to fire back.

The incident looks set to deal a fresh blow to US-Pakistan relations, which had only just begun to recover following a unilateral US raid that killed Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan in May.

Pakistani troops are involved in fighting the Taliban in the crucial border region area. Hundreds of militants have been resisting attempts by the security forces to clear them from southern and south-eastern parts of the district.

[cosmicalstorm]

Why are they still in Afghanistan? Surely it cannot be more than a year or two before it becomes economically impossible to continue that particular lunacy.

[Lord Zentei]

They're quite capable of staying there for years on end. Theoretically. It's more the political difficulty of staying there that's an increasingly difficult issue.

[Captain Seafort]

30 Sept 2010: Nato helicopters kill two Pakistani soldiers, prompting nearly two-week border closure in protest
22 April 2011: Supplies to Nato forces in Afghanistan halted for three days in protest over drone attacks
2 May: US announces Bin Laden's death and says Pakistan not warned of raid
2 June: Top US military chief Adm Mike Mullen admits "significant" cut in US troops in Pakistan
10 July: US suspends $800m of military aid
22 Sept: Outgoing US Adm Mullen accuses Pakistan of supporting Haqqani militant group in Afghanistan; denied by Pakistan

Looks like people have a lot of fences to mend, if they want that partnership to continue at all.

They forgot "CIA guy kills a couple of Pakistanis and is nicked for murder. US screams and throws its toys out of the pram until they let him go."

[Korto]

This is reminding me of a previous thread where someone asked why do we continue trying to deal with Pakistan who only pretends to like us, when we could deal with India instead. The answer, as I recall, was that Pakistan may only pretend to like us, but India doesn't even bother with the pretense.

[Zaune]

They forgot "CIA guy kills a couple of Pakistanis and is nicked for murder. US screams and throws its toys out of the pram until they let him go."

Just for the sake of being scrupulously fair, I recall from news reports at the time that while the CIA agent's actions were far from beyond reproach, there's good evidence that said Pakistanis were attempting to jack his car when he opened fire.

[Thanas]

They forgot "CIA guy kills a couple of Pakistanis and is nicked for murder. US screams and throws its toys out of the pram until they let him go."

Just for the sake of being scrupulously fair, I recall from news reports at the time that while the CIA agent's actions were far from beyond reproach, there's good evidence that said Pakistanis were attempting to jack his car when he opened fire.

..after he ran somebody over and stole their car.

[Enigma]

Well the Afghanis are claiming that the attacks came from the two army posts in Pakistan.

Associated Press

Afghan officials: Fire from Pakistan led to attack
APBy RAHIM FAIEZ and SEBASTIAN ABBOT | AP – 1 hr 16 mins ago


ISLAMABAD (AP) — Afghanistan officials claimed Sunday that Afghan and NATO forces were retaliating for gunfire from two Pakistani army bases when they called in airstrikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, adding a layer of complexity to an episode that has further strained Pakistan's ties with the United States.

The account challenged Pakistan's claim that the strikes were unprovoked.

The attack Saturday near the Afghan-Pakistani border aroused popular anger in Pakistan and added tension to the U.S.-Pakistani relationship, which has been under pressure since the secret U.S. raid inside Pakistan that killed Osama bin Laden in May.

Pakistan has closed its western border to trucks delivering supplies to coalition troops in Afghanistan, demanded that the U.S. abandon an air base inside Pakistan and said it will review its cooperation with the U.S. and NATO.

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 U.S. needs Pakistan to push Afghan insurgents to participate in peace talks.

Afghanistan's assertions about the attack muddy the efforts to determine what happened. The Afghan officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, said it was unclear who fired on Afghan and NATO forces, which were conducting a joint operation before dawn Saturday.

They said the fire came from the direction of the two Pakistani army posts along the border that were later hit in the airstrikes.

NATO has said it is investigating, but it has not questioned the Pakistani claim that 24 soldiers were killed. All airstrikes are approved at a higher command level than the troops on the ground.

Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen offered his deepest condolences and said the coalition was committed to working with Pakistan to "avoid such tragedies in the future."

"We have a joint interest in the fight against cross-border terrorism and in ensuring that Afghanistan does not once again become a safe-haven for terrorists," Rasmussen said in Brussels.

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

The U.S. plans its own investigation. Two U.S. senators called Sunday for harder line on Pakistan.

Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., said Pakistan must understand that American aid depends on Pakistani cooperation. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said Pakistan's moves to punish coalition forces for the airstrikes are more evidence that the U.S. should get its troops out of the region.

On Sunday, Pakistani soldiers received the coffins of the victims from army helicopters and prayed over them. The coffins were draped with the green and white Pakistani flag.

The dead included an army major and another senior officer. The chief of the Pakistani army and regional political leaders attended the funerals.

"The attack was unprovoked and indiscriminate," said army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas. "There was no reason for it. Map references of all our border posts have been passed to NATO a number of times."

There were several protests around Pakistan, including in Karachi, where about 500 Islamists rallied outside the U.S. Consulate.

The relationship between the United States and Pakistan, a nuclear-armed nation in a strategically vital part of the world, grew more difficult after the covert raid that killed bin Laden in May.

Pakistani leaders were outraged that they were not told beforehand. Also, the U.S. has been frustrated by Pakistan's refusal to target militants using its territory to stage attacks on American and other NATO troops in Afghanistan.

A year ago, a U.S. helicopter attack killed two Pakistani soldiers posted on the border, and a joint investigation by the two nations found that Pakistani troops had fired first at the U.S. helicopters.

The investigation found that the shots were probably meant as warnings after the choppers passed into Pakistani airspace.

After that incident, Pakistan closed one of the two border crossings for U.S. supplies for 10 days. There was no indication of how long it would keep the border closed this time.

On Sunday, about 300 trucks carrying supplies to U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan were backed up at the Torkham border crossing in the northwest Khyber tribal area, the one closed last year, as well as at Chaman, in the southwestern Baluchistan province.

Militants inside Pakistan periodically attack the slow-moving convoys, and torched 150 trucks last year as they waited for days to enter Afghanistan.

"We are worried," said Saeed Khan, a driver waiting at the border terminal in Torkham and speaking by phone. "This area is always vulnerable to attacks. Sometimes rockets are lobbed at us. Sometimes we are targeted by bombs."

Some drivers said paramilitary troops had been deployed to protect their convoys since the closures, but others were left without any additional protection. Even those who did receive troops did not feel safe.

"If there is an attack, what can five or six troops do?" said Niamatullah Khan, a fuel truck driver who was parked with 35 other vehicles at a restaurant about 125 miles, or 200 kilometers, from Chaman.

NATO uses routes through Pakistan for almost half of its shipments of non-lethal supplies for its troops in Afghanistan, including fuel, food and clothes. Critical supplies like ammunition are airlifted directly to Afghan air bases.

NATO has built a stockpile of military and other supplies that could keep operations running at their current level for several months even with the two crossings closed, said a NATO official closely involved with the Afghan war, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

NATO once shipped about 80 percent of its non-lethal supplies through Pakistan. It has reduced that proportion by going through Central Asia. It could send more that way, but that would make NATO heavily dependent on Russia at a time when ties with Moscow are increasingly strained.

Pakistan also gave the U.S. 15 days to vacate Shamsi Air Base in Baluchistan. The U.S. uses it to service drone aircraft targeting al-Qaida and Taliban militants in Pakistan's tribal region when weather problems or mechanical trouble keeps the drones from returning to their bases in Afghanistan, U.S. and Pakistani officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

The drone strikes are very unpopular in Pakistan, and Pakistani military and civilian leaders say publicly that the U.S. carries them out without their permission. But privately, they allow them to go on, and even help with targeting for some of them.

[General Mung Beans]

Why are they still in Afghanistan? Surely it cannot be more than a year or two before it becomes economically impossible to continue that particular lunacy.

You mean the original war that happened only after 9-11?