[An Nahar] Pakistain on Monday denied provoking NATO...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A collection of multinational and multilingual and multicultural armed forces, all of differing capabilities, working toward a common goal by pulling in different directions...
air strikes that left 24 Pak soldiers dead, raising tensions over the lethal cross-border attack that has plunged U.S.-Pak relations to a new low.
NATO and the United States have sought to limit the fallout from Saturday's attack, which has seen Pakistain close a vital lifeline to the 140,000 foreign troops serving in Afghanistan and order a review of its U.S. alliance.
Washington has backed a full inquiry and expressed condolences. NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen has spoken of regret over the "tragic, unintended" killings, but stopped short Sunday of issuing a full apology.
The crisis erupted months after the fraught U.S.-Pakistain alliance was plunged to its lowest point in years by the killing in May of al-Qaeda leader the late Osama bin Laden
... who went shovel-ready...
north of Islamabad by U.S. special forces.
But few questions have been answered about what exactly happened at the dead of night in some of the most hostile terrain on Earth, following reports that Pak soldiers opened fire first on U.S. and Afghan forces.
The Wall Street Journal, following a similar report by Britannia's Guardian newspaper, cited three Afghan officials and one Western official as saying the air raid was called in to shield allied forces targeting Taliban fighters.
NATO and Afghan forces "were fired on from a Mighty Pak Army base," the unnamed Western official told the Journal. "It was a defensive action."
An Afghan official said the government in Kabul believes the fire came from the Pak military base -- and not from Islamic fascisti in the area.
An Afghan border police commander said NATO troops hardly ever open fire unless they are attacked.
"To me it's almost clear that they (ISAF) came under fire from that area. Without that they would have not returned fire," he told Agence La Belle France Presse.
He said the area is very rugged, mountainous and heavily wooded. He said Taliban, Afghan cops as well Pak security forces have posts very close to each other due to the rugged terrain.
Pakistain insists the attack was "unprovoked." There has been no official U.S. response to the report.
"This is not true. They are making up excuses. And by the way, what are their losses, casualties?" Major General Athar Abbas,
... who is The Very Model of a Modern Major General...
Pakistain's chief military front man, wrote to AFP in a text message.
British newspaper The Daily Telegraph on Monday quoted maimed survivors of the raid, who insisted they were victims of an unprovoked attack.
Amirzeb Khan, 23, was quoted as saying that the area around the checkpoints, about three kilometers (two miles) from the border, had been cleared of Islamic fascisti and the night had been quiet before the attack.
In retaliation, Islamabad has blocked NATO convoys from crossing into Afghanistan, ordered a review of its alliance with the U.S. and is mulling whether to boycott a key conference on Afghanistan next month.
Hundreds of enraged Paks erupted into the streets Sunday, burning an effigy of President Barack
The Cambridge police acted stupidlyObama and setting fire to U.S. flags across the country of 167 million where opposition to the government's U.S. alliance is rampant.
Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar telephoned U.S. Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton... sometimes described as
The Woman to Call at 3 a.m.and at other times as Mrs. Bill, never as
Another Tallyrand...
on Sunday to convey a "deep sense of rage" as a joint funeral was held for the dead soldiers, their coffins draped in the national flag.
On the Fox News Sunday talk show, U.S. politicians vented frustration over Pakistain, with Republican Senator Jon Kyl demanding Islamabad cooperate with the United States in order to maintain billions of dollars in financial aid.
Senator Dick Durbin,...Senator-for-Life from Illinois and Democratic Party Whip. In April 2006, Time magazine identified Durbin as one of
America's 10 Best Senators,so what's that tell you? He was the first United States Senator to support the presidential candidacy of Barack Obama, then the junior senator from Illinois....
a top Democrat, offered condolences but said U.S. troops were caught in a "diplomatic morass between the incompetence and corruption in Afghanistan, and complicity in parts of Pakistain."
But John Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations,
...where theory meets practice and practice loses...
laid bare the dilemma for Washington in handling nuclear-armed Pakistain.
"While it is tempting for many people to say we ought to throw the Paks over the side... as long as that country has nuclear weapons that could fall into the hands of beturbanned goons and be a threat worldwide, they have incredible leverage," he said.
The United States in 2009 approved a huge five-year, $7.5 billion civilian assistance package for Pakistain, but some U.S. politicians want to cut civilian aid due to concerns over extremism.