PAKISTAN HAS given the US 15 days to vacate an airbase used as a key launchpad for drone strikes in Afghanistan in retaliation for a mistaken attack on a Pakistani border outpost that killed at least 24 soldiers and injured 13.
American forces were told to leave the remote Shamsi airbase, secretly given over to the US after 9/11, following an emergency meeting of Pakistan’s top civilian and military leadership late on Saturday. Pakistan has also blocked supply routes for US-led troops in Afghanistan.
Shamsi was used heavily for launching the war in Afghanistan in late 2001, and later served as the base for the US drone programme. Set in sparsely populated desert in the western Baluchistan province, Shamsi is highly controversial within Pakistan for its association with drones, which Islamabad officially condemns.
The decision of the country’s defence committee of the cabinet is an admission that Shamsi remains in American hands. The committee announced that the government would “revisit and undertake a complete review of all programmes, activities and co-operative arrangements” with the US, and US-led forces in Afghanistan, “including diplomatic, political, military and intelligence”.
Relations between Islamabad and Washington were already under deep strain before the incident, in which helicopters from the International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) operating in Afghanistan shelled checkpoints on the Pakistani side, apparently in error. “These attacks, which constituted breach of sovereignty, were violative of international law and had gravely dented the fundamental basis of Pakistan’s co-operation with Nato/Isaf against militancy and terror,” said a statement issued by the committee, which is chaired by the prime minister and includes the army chief. “Nato/Isaf attacks were also violative of their mandate, which was confined to Afghanistan.”
A western official and a senior Afghan security official said Nato and Afghan forces had come under fire from across the border with Pakistan before Nato aircraft attacked the army post, killing the soldiers. “They came under cross-border fire,” the western official said, without identifying the source of the fire. The Afghan official said troops had come under fire from inside Pakistan as they were descending from helicopters, which had returned fire. Both officials asked not to be named because the attack was so sensitive.Pakistan has said the attack was an unprovoked assault and that it reserves the right to retaliate.
The deaths of the Pakistani soldiers will fuel anti-American sentiment in Pakistan, a key US ally. Although there have been previous deaths of Pakistani troops caused by mistaken fire from coalition aircraft, the scale of the bloodshed this time was far greater. Pakistan’s army chief, Ashfaq Kayani, put the death toll at 24. Other reports put the number killed as high as 28.
The border between Pakistan’s tribal area and Afghanistan is poorly marked. Insurgents who use the tribal area as a safe haven often fire on coalition and Afghan troops from positions close to Pakistani checkpoints, raising US suspicions that the Pakistani military collaborates with the insurgents.
Isaf and the Pakistan military have poor communication, and maps of Pakistani checkpoints and the Afghan border do not always match.Yesterday, the US ambassador to Islamabad, Cameron Munter, pledged the US would “work closely with Pakistan to investigate this incident”.
– (Guardian service, additional reporting Reuters)