U.S. military officials took some responsibility for the cross-border friendly fire attack that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers last month but blamed “overarching lack of trust” between Pakistan and the United States for a sequence of communications failures that led to the deadly strike.
Air Force Brig. Gen. Stephen Clark, the Central Command officer who headed an investigation into the deaths that occurred on Nov. 26, said that U.S. and Afghan forces came under heavy fire from a ridgeline inside Pakistan. That fire was coming from the direction of outposts that Pakistani forces had not disclosed to U.S. and Afghan commands. Clark, whose investigative report was released Thursday, disputed Pakistan’s claim that NATO forces were aware of the Pakistani outposts before the attack.
The report admits that U.S. military personnel at a joint Border Coordination Center in eastern Afghanistan, gave “incorrect mapping information” to Pakistan after the attack was already underway. Clark said the United States did not share exact coordinates of U.S. and Afghan troops with Pakistan because that is not normally done because of a “lack of trust” between the United States and Pakistan.
An AC-130 gunship and several Apache attack helicopters were sent to aid U.S. and Afghan troops who were receiving an onslaught of automatic weapons and mortar fire in their direction, Clark said.
American troops, who were operating in complete darkness without any illumination from the moon, turned off their night vision wear as to not give their location away to the shooters, whom they believed were tracking their movements.
Pakistani officials said they will not comment on the record until they see the report. But an official who asked not to be named told The Washington Examiner that Pakistan “expects nothing but lies.”
Clark said the investigation was incomplete because of Pakistan’s failure to participate.
“A significant element is missing,” he told reporters. “We would’ve benefited tremendously” from Pakistan’s participation.
“We express our deepest condolences to the Pakistani government, people and to the families,” Clark said. “We must work to improve level of trust between two countries.”
A senior Pakistani official said they did not participate in an investigation because “it would pointless, due to the lack of results in past investigations where cross-border fire has taken place.”
The United States will offer to make payments of restitution to the families of the 24 killed Pakistani soldiers, a Pentagon official said.
George Little, Defense Department spokesman said the investigation and report into the incident have not yet been shared with Pakistani officials but will be shared with them soon.
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Capt. John Kirby, a Pentagon spokesman, said the goal of the U.S. and NATO forces is to learn from the mistakes made by both sides. The United States will take “whatever corrective measures are required to ensure an incident like this is not repeated,” he said. “More critically, we must work to improve the level of trust between our two countries. We cannot operate effectively on the border — or in other parts of our relationship — without addressing the fundamental trust still lacking between us. We earnestly hope the Pakistani military will join us in bridging that gap.”
Sara A. Carter is The Washington Examiner’s national security correspondent. She can be reached at [email protected].
