Pakistan called a NATO air attack on a cross-border military checkpoint a deliberate act of aggression, as it announced boycott of an international conference on Afghanistan’s future in Germany next week.

 

director-general of military operations, Ishfaq Nadeem

Pakistan called a NATO air attack on a cross-border military checkpoint a deliberate act of aggression, as it announced boycott of an international conference on Afghanistan's future in Germany next week.

In a briefing to editors carried in local newspapers on Wednesday, director-general of military operations, Ishfaq Nadeem, said NATO forces were alerted they were attacking Pakistani posts, but helicopters kept firing at them.

Nadeem said that two Pakistani were attacked by the alliance forces for 15 minutes, adding that his country’s army called NATO and informed their counterparts on the other side of the border that they were being attacked.

The NATO stopped the attack following the Pakistani alert. However, only 15 minutes later, alliance helicopters came back and attacked the Pakistani checkpoints again, Nadeem said further.
NATO’s attack on Saturday killed 24 Pakistani soldiers. In addition, other 13 were wounded.

The Pakistani military also released a video that it said was filmed after the attack. Broadcast on television, it showed the rubble, apparently of two destroyed check posts. White flags strung on bushes fluttered on a mountain top.

PAKISTAN BOYCOTTs AFGHANISTAN CONFERENCE
Following the attack, Pakistan has closed the border to NATO convoys; a lifeline for 140,000 foreign occupation troops in Afghanistan, ordered American personnel to vacate an air base reportedly used by CIA drones and launched a review of the alliance.

Islamabad also announced it would boycott an international conference in Germany's Bonn on Afghanistan's future next week.
"Pakistan has decided not to attend the Bonn conference as a protest," a government official told the Reuters news agency after a cabinet meeting chaired by Yousuf Raza Gilani, the Pakistan prime minister, in Lahore.

US REGRETS BOYCOTT
For its part, the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, voiced regret over Pakistan's decision and urged it to reconsider.
Speaking at South Korea, Clinton said, also on Wednesday, that the US stance that the border killing of Pakistani soldiers was a "tragic incident" and pledged an investigation "as swiftly and thoroughly as possible".

"Frankly this is regrettable that Pakistan has decided not to attend the conference in Bonn because this conference has been long in the planning," she said.
"Pakistan like the United States has a profound interest in a secure, stable and increasingly democratic Afghanistan," Clinton said.