A US military investigation into the deaths of 24 Pakistani soldiers in repeated air strikes by American warplanes on two border outposts last month has found that both sides were to blame after a chain of misunderstandings led to a “tragic result”.
But a key finding of the inquiry – that Pakistani troops fired first – is likely to infuriate Pakistani military authorities and provoke a new row.
In statements hastily issued yesterday after elements of the secret report surfaced in the American press, Pentagon spokesmen blamed the incident on poor co-ordination between Pakistani troops, a joint US-Afghan special forces unit targeting a Taliban training camp and the Nato personnel who called in the air strikes. Mapping errors compounded the mistakes.
But crucially, a Pentagon statement read: “The investigating officer found that US forces, given what information they had available to them at the time, acted in self-defence and with appropriate force after being fired upon.”
Pakistani officials have repeatedly claimed their men were deliberately attacked, saying it was impossible they were mistaken for insurgents. In the aftermath of the clash, Gen Ashfaq Kayani, the chief of the army staff and the most senior soldier in Pakistan, publicly pledged to “defend the sovereignty of the country at all costs” and reportedly gave ground commanders permission to return fire against any “aggression” across the border from Nato forces operating in Afghanistan.
The Pentagon statement said the inquiry had found “there was no intentional effort to target persons or places known to be part of the Pakistani military, or to deliberately provide inaccurate location information to Pakistani officials”.
Pakistani military officials were not available for comment yesterday. The report comes at a difficult moment for the deeply unpopular Pakistani civilian government, which is already under pressure from the military and elements of the senior judiciary.
President Asif Ali Zardari, who is also co-chairman of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party, recently travelled to Dubai for medical treatment, sparking rumours of an imminent coup. He has returned to Pakistan but the sense that his hold on power is slipping is still strong. Yousuf Raza Gilani, the Pakistani prime minister, told an audience in Islamabad yesterday that there was a conspiracy to oust the country’s civilian government.
“Conspiracies are being hatched to pack up the elected government,” Mr Gilani said.
Though he did not specifically blame the powerful military, which has ruled Pakistan through much of its 64-year independent history, the prime minister later insisted in a speech to parliament that the army operate under the authority of elected politicians. “They cannot be a state within a state,” he said.
The prospect of further political instability will not cheer Washington though, however disillusioned US policymakers are with the current administration. Relations between the Pakistani security establishment and their American military and intelligence counterparts have deteriorated over recent months and years and distrust is now deep on both sides.
Dr Humayun Khan, a former Pakistani foreign secretary, said the report into the border incident made any improvement in the near future unlikely.
“Our side were very categoric about what had happened and will simply deny credibility of the findings of this investigation,” he said.
“The incident was a humiliation for them as it makes it look like they can’t protect our borders.”
But Mr Khan said, looking ahead, relations would have to improve. “Pakistan can’t really afford to annoy the US permanently and will have to cool down a bit at some stage,” he said. – (Guardian service)