Sharing blame?
The Pentagon enquiry into the deadly Nato strike on Salala military posts inside Mohmand Agency last month has been finalised. The tragic incident which led to the killing of 24 Pakistani troops naturally caused a strong reaction in Pakistan. The government banned trucks carrying vital supplies for Nato forces fighting in Afghanistan. The US was told to vacate the Shamsi Airbase from where the US had operated its drones. Upping the ante subsequently, Pakistan army bolstered its air defenses along its Afghan border, including deploying shoulder-to-air missiles. Gen Kayani told commanders along the border that they could return fire without awaiting permission from central command, as had been the case in the past.
The Pentagon report has concluded that mistakes by both American and Pakistani forces had led to the air-strikes. While acknowledging for the first time some American responsibility for the clash, the report maintains that the air-strikes were conducted in self-defense. According to the findings, Pakistani soldiers were the first to open fire on a joint team of Afghan and American special operations forces operating along the frontier between Afghanistan and Pakistan. As opposed to the position taken by Pakistan’s DGMO that the attack was a pre-planned conspiracy, the report maintains that there was “no intentional effort to target persons or places known to be part of the Pakistani military.”
A statement by the ISPR has however rejected the conclusions of the investigation for “being short on facts.” As Pakistan had declined to be associated with the probe, some of the vital facts might have escaped notice of the Pentagon team. With the American side not totally exonerating itself, the possibility of reconciling the positions taken by the two armies cannot altogether be ruled out. There is need on both sides to resolve the issue. With a virtual end to the exchange of information between the two sides, militants are having a field day as the Friday TTP attack on a paramilitary fort in Tank, killing a soldier and kidnappings 15 others amply indicates.
