Suspected US commandos from Afghanistan killed 20 people, including women and children, in a pre-dawn raid inside Pakistan, officials said, an attack branded as an assault on the nation’s sovereignty.
The attack is likely to spark uproar in Pakistan, where it will be seen as undermining sovereignty at a time when a new government is struggling to assert authority.
“It is outrageous,” Owais Ahmed Ghani, the governor of North West Frontier province, said in a statement.
“This is a direct assault on the sovereignty of Pakistan and the people of Pakistan expect that the armed forces ... would rise to defend the sovereignty of the country and give a befitting reply,” he said.
Security officials in the region said they suspected US soldiers backed by helicopter gunships mounted the attack.
A spokeswoman for Afghanistan’s NATO-led force said she had no information about the incident.
A spokesman for the US-led coalition force declined to comment, referring questions to the US Central Command.
The attack took place in a village in the South Waziristan region, a known sanctuary for al-Qaeda and Taliban militants. The village is across the border from Bermal, a village near a US base at Shikin in Afghanistan’s Paktika Province.
“Troops came in helicopters and carried out action in three houses,” Angor Adda village shopkeeper Gul Nawaz said.
Other residents said the foreign troops detained some people and took them away.
Meanwhile, Afghanistan has accepted a US proposal for a tripartite investigation into civilian casualties from a coalition air strike in western Herat Province last month, a foreign ministry official said yesterday.
The US military has disputed the toll of 96 civilians the Afghan government and the UN said were killed in the raid in Shindand district, saying five to seven civilians were killed.
“The government has agreed to take part in the investigations involving the government, international forces and the U.N since there is this difference over the figures [casualties],” Foreign Ministry spokesman Sultan Ahmad Baheen said.
Public anger has been mounting in recent days in Afghanistan over allegations of civilian casualties, including children, and opened up a rift between the Afghan government and the foreign coalition forces.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai, under increasing pressure to stop civilian casualties, called for a review of combat operations by foreign forces following the air strikes in Herat.
Baheen said a government commission appointed by Karzai to review the presence of foreign troops had begun to draw up a set of rules involving operations of foreign forces in the country.
“It is trying to find ways so that we can avoid civilian casualties,” Baheen said.
The US military said its investigation into the Shindand operation found 30 to 35 Taliban militants were killed, including a local commander, and there was evidence the militants were planning to attack a nearby coalition forces’ base.
In other news from Islamabad, shots were fired at Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani’s motorcade yesterday but he was not hurt, his spokesman said.
“Multiple shots were fired ... the prime minister is safe,” said the spokesman, Zahid Bashir, adding at least two bullets had hit Gilani’s armored vehicle.
The attack happened on the main road to the airport in Islamabad.
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