Four civilians, including two children, were killed on Sunday when militants from inside Pakistan fired rockets at NATO bases in eastern Afghanistan, the coalition force and police said. Some 20 rockets slammed into the area in two separate incidents, with five of them coming from inside Pakistan, NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said in a statement. ISAF said the military “responded in self-defence” with artillery fire on the launch site, which it said was “located about 985 feet inside Pakistan”. Afghanistan’s Defence Ministry said in a statement that 13 rockets were fired from across the border on NATO and Afghan army bases in Khost. The force also responded with artillery and an airstrike to an earlier rocket barrage fired from a location inside Afghanistan, the statement said. Islamabad was notified about the rebel attack on its bases, ISAF said. “The Pakistan military was immediately notified when ISAF forces came under fire,” it said.
| Pakistan Army spokesman Maj Gen Athar Abbas denied reports that the fire might have come from Frontier Corps troops and said international forces and militants had exchanged fire on the Afghan side of the border while Pakistani forces also fired at the militants. |
Army denial: Pakistan Army spokesman Maj Gen Athar Abbas denied reports that the fire might have come from Frontier Corps troops and said international forces and militants had exchanged fire on the Afghan side of the border while Pakistani forces also fired at the militants. | “It is not possible. It was not from our fire, it could have been the militants’ fire but not from our positions,” Abbas said. |
“It is not possible. It was not from our fire, it could have been the militants’ fire but not from our positions,” Abbas said when asked about the NATO report of shells landing close to one of its forward bases and inside an Afghan army compound. “We openly engaged the militants on the border. There is no possibility of our engaging the camps of the Afghan forces inside Afghanistan.” “This is another reason why the international community must pressure Pakistan to stop militant activities within its territory,” Karzai’s chief spokesman, Homayun Hamidzada, told AFP. |