U.S. releases video of Pakistan airstrike
Pakistan army alleges 11 of its soldiers were killed near the Afghan border. U.S. military says the footage shows a battle with militants and absolves American forces of responsibility.
NEW DELHI — Faced with outrage from a key ally, the U.S. military on Thursday released footage of a clash between coalition forces and Taliban militants that Pakistan alleges killed 11 of its soldiers.
The unusual move by military officials was clearly designed to soothe anger in Pakistan and to bolster the U.S. account of what happened in the rugged Afghan-Pakistani border region Tuesday, when American warplanes dropped bombs during a battle with militants in the area.
The Pakistani army says the airstrike was an "unprovoked and cowardly act" that killed its paramilitary soldiers, whereas the U.S. military insists its forces acted within accepted rules of engagement and launched the strike in self-defense.
The incident has put a strain on already-fragile relations between Washington and the newly elected Pakistani government. The Bush administration has long counted on Pakistan as a front-line ally in the battle against Islamic extremism, but the new government in Islamabad plans to negotiate with militants and resents what it sees as U.S. disregard for its sovereignty.
Pakistani military officials say the clash between U.S.-led troops and militants just inside Afghanistan on Tuesday culminated in an airstrike on the Pakistani border outpost at Goraprai, in which a major and 10 other members of the Mohmand Rifles were killed.
But the U.S. military asserts that the footage released Thursday, shot by an unmanned aerial drone, absolves American forces of responsibility for those deaths.
The gray, grainy 6 1/2 -minute video appears to show militants on a hilltop in Afghanistan's mountainous Kunar province, a vantage point from which they unleash small-arms and rocket fire on coalition troops below. A voice dubbed over the video says that the coalition soldiers then try to regroup at a location where a helicopter could rescue them.
A bright flash bursts on the screen, a "precision bomb" that the narrator says killed two of the militants on the Pakistani side of the border. But, the voice adds, "it is clear that there are no military structures or outposts in the area."
At least three more bombs explode, killing the remaining militants, the narrator says. The video does not account for other bombs that U.S. military officials acknowledge were dropped in the area.
Speaking to reporters traveling with President Bush in Europe, national security advisor Stephen Hadley said U.S. officials had "not been able to corroborate" the Pakistani charges about the airstrike.
