PESHAWAR, PAKISTAN — The Pakistani army Wednesday accused the U.S. military of an "unprovoked and cowardly" airstrike that resulted in the deaths of 11 Pakistani infantrymen, threatening the cooperation between the two countries in combating terrorism.
In an unusually strong statement, the Pakistani army added that it reserved the right to protect citizens from unwarranted aggression.
As American officials expressed regret for the deaths without acknowledging responsibility, the incident threatened to aggravate already tense relations between the U.S. and Pakistan, whose newly elected government has faced accusations from the U.S. military that it has failed to crack down on extremists in Pakistan's western tribal areas.
A senior official acting as an intermediary between the two countries said there was a flurry of high-level phone calls and meetings Wednesday attempting to defuse the incident. Top Pakistani officials were so irate that they summoned U.S. Ambassador Anne W. Patterson to the Foreign Ministry to complain, the official said.
"Nobody wants this to become bigger than it is," said the senior official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss negotiations publicly. "It is just a bad time for this to happen. You want to just play it down and figure out a way of calming the rage."
U.S. airstrikes in Pakistani territory have occurred with some regularity in recent months, and are a source of friction between Washington and Islamabad.
Many of the previous attacks have targeted Taliban and Al Qaeda militants, U.S. officials say. But such incidents arouse the anger of Pakistanis who see the strikes as an infringement of their sovereignty.
Many in Pakistan accuse President Pervez Musharraf of being too accepting of such U.S. attacks, and the nation's newly elected government is trying to sideline the president and reduce his powers.
The U.S. State Department expressed regret for the deaths of the Pakistani infantrymen after a gunfight involving U.S. troops on the Afghanistan border escalated Tuesday night, leading to a U.S. airstrike that Pakistani officials said killed members of the military's Frontier Corps.
But U.S. officials also said they had yet to confirm that the strike, in which multiple bombs were dropped, was responsible for the deaths.
