Pak army rejects US strike account

Pakistans army said its troops shot at suspected militants who were nowhere near coalition troops

Pakistans army Monday formally rejected a US claim that American airstrikes that killed 24 Pakistani troops last year were justified as self-defence,a stance that could complicate efforts to repair troubled relations between the two countries.

In a detailed report,the army said that Pakistani troops did not trigger the November 26 incident at two posts along the Afghan border by firing at American and Afghan forces,as US alleged. Pakistans army said its troops shot at suspected militants who were nowhere near coalition troops.

Trying to affix partial responsibility of the incident on Pakistan is,therefore,unjustified and unacceptable, said the report,which was issued in response to a US probe into the matter. Washington expressed condolences for the deaths of the soldiers but said US troops acted with appropriate force in self-defence because they thought they were being attacked by Taliban insurgents.

Pakistan said the fundamental cause of the deadly airstrikes was the decision by coalition forces not to tell Pakistan that US and Afghan troops were conducting an operation near the border. Brig. Gen. Stephen Clark,an Air Force special operations officer who led the US investigation,said US forces did not know the two relatively new Pakistani outposts had been set up along the border. The Pakistani army countered that coalition forces must have known about the two posts,because they had conducted at least one other operation in the area afterward.

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Agencies