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Afghan commander sends reinforcements to Pakistan border
Afghanistan ordered extra troops to its border with Pakistan after an exchange of artillery and mortar fire with Pakistani troops on the other side, an Afghan general said Monday. | Are you quite sure those were Pak mortars? |
| Could have been Presbyterians. |
Gen. Khial Baz, commander of a militia division in the eastern province of Khost, said he had reports of Pakistani troops moving toward the mountainous frontier, and that he had ordered his men to also reinforce Afghan border posts. "I ordered all my troops to prepare their equipment and go toward the border," Baz told The Associated Press by telephone. He wouldn't say how many Afghan troops were being mobilized or when they would leave their barracks. An Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman said he was unaware of any cross-border skirmish or troop mobilization. Baz said several artillery rounds whistled over the border into Khost's Gurbuz district on Monday morning. No casualties were reported. | Hek's boyz hanging in Waziristan these days? |
"We gave the same answer by mortar," he said. Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, chief army spokesman for Pakistan, said there was no firing by Pakistani soldiers on Monday. | "We're not nuts. Well, most of us, anyway." |
He also said the Pakistani military had lodged a protest with the U.S. military in Afghanistan about an exchange of mortar fire on Sunday which killed a Pakistani soldier and seriously wounded two others, and asked them to investigate. Baz said he knew nothing of any mortar fire across the border on Sunday. Maj. Mark McCann, a spokesman for the U.S. military in Afghanistan, said it had received the complaint and was "working with all sides to try to resolve any misunderstanding that has taken place." He said there were no American forces in that area and had no information on any troop build-up. | "Nope. Those aren't US troops there, those are um...delivery men. Waziristan dialled out for...flowers and pizza. And General Tso's Chicken." |
A Pakistani intelligence official in North Waziristan, opposite Khost province, also reported no unusual troop movements on the Pakistan side of the border. He spoke on condition of anonymity. | Regardless of the reason or lack thereof for an exchange of mortar fire, I'm pleased to see the Afghan army working to secure its borders (especially in Wazibilly land). Good work! |
| There's a certain aura of competence in the Afghan army that you ordinarily don't see in that part of the world ... |
Posted by: Seafarious 2005-01-04 |
