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War, War, War See other War, War, War Articles Title: Pakistan halts NATO supplies to Afghanistan after attack Pakistan halts NATO supplies to Afghanistan after attack AFP Published: Thursday September 30, 2010 Pakistan shut down the main land route for NATO supplies into Afghanistan Thursday, accusing the alliance's helicopters of killing Pakistani soldiers in a fourth cross-border attack this week. NATO said aircraft entered Pakistani airspace early Thursday in self-defence and killed "several armed individuals" after the crews believed they had been fired at from the ground. The Pakistani government said it was investigating the incident in the Kurram district of Pakistan's northwestern tribal belt, which Washington has branded an Al-Qaeda headquarters and hub of militants fighting in Afghanistan. The region is being targeted by a record number of US drone strikes and was reportedly where Al-Qaeda hatched a plot to attack cities in Britain, France and Germany uncovered by Western intelligence agencies. "We have suspended NATO supply trucks for the time being due to security reasons," an official in Pakistan's Frontier Corps paramilitary unit told AFP in the northwestern city of Peshawar on condition of anonymity. Officials at the Torkham border crossing in Pakistan's Khyber district and a US diplomat confirmed that NATO convoys were not being allowed to cross. Khyber is on the main NATO supply route into Afghanistan, where more than 152,000 US and NATO forces are fighting a nine-year Taliban insurgency. The Pakistani military said two helicopters from Afghanistan crossed the border and fired on a Frontier Corps (FC) outpost, about 200 metres (650 feet) inside Pakistan. Six soldiers manning the post "retaliated through rifle fire to indicate that the helicopters were crossing into our territory," it said. "Instead of heeding to the warning, helicopters went to fire two missiles, destroying the post. As a result, three FC soldiers have embraced shahadat (martyrdom) and three have been injured." But NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in a statement: "The aircraft received what the crews assessed as effective small arms fire from individuals just across the border in Pakistan." They then responded in self-defence, NATO said. Pakistan condemned all cross-border air strikes by NATO helicopters pursuing militants into its territory as a violation of sovereignty. "US and ISAF forces should share credible and actionable information with Pakistan?s forces enabling them to take the required action against the possible threat," said Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani. Although Pakistan is a key US ally, its powerful military has been accused in the West of playing a double game by supporting Afghan Taliban. Washington considers Pakistan's border areas with Afghanistan the most dangerous place on Earth and has this month significantly stepped up a covert drone war on Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked militants holed up in the area. More than 20 such strikes have been recorded in September, including one last Saturday believed to have killed Sheikh Fateh, the purported Al-Qaeda operations chief for Pakistan and Afghanistan. Pakistan said that visiting CIA chief Leon Panetta promised to respect its sovereignty and examine reports of NATO helicopter raids. Owais Ahmed Ghani, governor of the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, condemned the attack as a "blatant act of aggression" and called on Pakistan to review the conduct of the war on militancy. It was the fourth such attack or cross-border fire reported in a week. The US presence in Afghanistan and US drone strikes in the tribal belt are the subject of fierce criticism and suspicion in Pakistan. The Pentagon said Tuesday the recent strikes were marked by "communication breakdowns" as officers were not able to contact their Pakistani counterparts about the operation until afterwards.
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#1. To: Red Jones (#0)
The assholes (and I am using that word in its technical sense) in the Pentagon are completely out of control. Is there no one in Congress that can pull the administration up short? We are reaping a whirlwind. I mean how much of this humiliation can our friends (and we so count them in our "war on terror") in Pakistan take before their own people pull them out by the roots??
Pakistan is a disaster. Most of their people want nothing to do with the US. but they are expected to have a government that cooperates with the US agenda. this involves attacking elements in Pakistan and using Pakistan to facilitate the Afghan war. They have a situation like our country where their people just plain do not support what their government must do according to the expectations of those who rule globally. they have had this horrible flooding that is not normal. They've had a lot of terrorist type attacks killing many Pakistani people. In the last day or two this character Musharef who formerly led the Pakistani military I think founded a new political party from exile in London. Their current leader is rich, he got rich by being a leader. They are a little bit like the Palestinians in that their government is expected to conform to expectations from the outside and their people are opposed.
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