Reports: Probe Finds U.S. Mistakes in Pakistan Drone Strike
The United States will soon concede responsibility in part for last month's drone air strikes in Pakistan that killed 24 soldiers, U.S. media reports said Thursday citing U.S. officials.
Results of a U.S. military probe, to be given to defense officials Friday, show U.S. and Afghan commandos were wrong in concluding there were no Pakistani forces in the border region before giving a strike go-ahead, officials familiar with the probe told the Wall Street Journal.
The probe says the strikes were deemed justified as Pakistani troops had fired first at a team of U.S. and Afghan Special Forces troops in the border, according to the New York Times, also citing unnamed U.S. officials.
Pakistan has sought a full apology from President Barack Obama for the strike, while U.S. officials have maintained the November 26 incident was a regrettable mistake.
The deadly strikes have heighten tension on an already fragile relationship, with Islamabad cutting off critical NATO supply routes to Afghanistan, and Pakistani officials going as far as alleging deliberate U.S. targeting of their troops at the border posts.
The military investigation finds that U.S. forces provided inaccurate information to Pakistani troops in region after the strike, according to the Journal.
Miscommunication between both U.S. and Pakistan forces is blamed in the report, according to officials cited by the Times.
"The overarching issue that surrounds this incident is a lack of trust" between U.S. and Pakistan authorities, in the lead up to the strike, an official told the Journal.
Revelations from the military probe placing blame on both U.S. and Pakistani forces could further enrage Islamabad, where officials have maintained their troops did nothing wrong, and did not fire first.
In Washington last week, a Pakistan embassy official said NATO forces could not have mistaken the two border posts on the Afghan border for bases of Islamic extremists such as the Taliban as they stood on high ground and had structures.
The Pakistani official had declined to speculate on U.S. motivations for any alleged deliberate attack.
The incident comes amid high tension between the United States and Pakistan, whose military -- long the country's most powerful institution -- has been on the defensive since the secret U.S. raid in May that killed Osama bin Laden.
Source: Agence France Presse
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