Pakistan protests to U.S. envoy over border raid

PAKISTAN: An angry Pakistan summoned the U.S. ambassador to protest against a raid on a Pakistani border village in which officials said 20 people, including women and children were killed, an official said on Thursday.

The pre-dawn helicopter-borne ground assault on the village of Angor Adda in the South Waziristan region on the Afghan border on Wednesday, was the first known incursion into Pakistan by U.S.-led troops since the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

The United States says al Qaeda and Taliban militants are based in sanctuaries in northwest Pakistan’s ethnic Pashtun tribal areas on the Afghan border, where they orchestrate attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan and plot violence in the West. While Pakistan is a U.S. ally in the unpopular campaign against terrorism, it rules out incursions by foreign troops into its terrority.

There have, however, been numerous missile strikes on militants in Pakistan, most believed launched by U.S.-operated pilotless drone aircraft. U.S. ambassador Anne Patterson was summoned to the Foreign Ministry on Wednesday evening after Pakistan strongly condemned the raid as a gross violation of Pakistani territory that could undermine security cooperation, a ministry spokesman said. “She said she would convey our concerns and the protest of the government of Pakistan to her government,” said ministry spokesman Mohammad Sadiq.

A U.S. embassy spokesman declined to comment.

While there is little, if any, doubt the raid was carried out by U.S. troops, it was not clear which Afghan-based force they came from.

Islamabad, Thursday, Reuters