by Jack
Shortly after 1 a.m. on the 26th of November, 2011, U.S. and a few allied
NATO forces were inside Afghanistan, patrolling about a half mile from the Pakistani border when they suddenly came under a hail of gunfire from a position several hundred meters inside Pakistan. The patrol consisted of armored Humvees (4X4’s). The U.S. checked with their command before the air strike and they in turn contacted Pakistan’s command who said no Pakistani soldiers or bases were in the area.
US forces called for an airstrike on the enemy position which was answered by two Apache helicopters and several F15 Eagles. When the firing started on the two border camps Pakistan still refused to acknowledge their positions. By 2:20 a.m. it was all over, 24 Pakistani soldiers were killed and another 13 were wounded. U.S. forces did not suffer any causalities.
The Pakistani government charged that the US forces attacked two of their border outposts without any provocation and demanded an apology. The US immediately said it regretted the incident, but it stopped short of an apology or taking any blame. Since then the US has conducted a through investigation and invited the Paki’s to take part, but they refused.
Pakistan’s government suggested the Paki’s were only returning fire and thought the US patrol were Taliban, but this doesn’t hold up. The Taliban certainly do not use armored Humvee’s and the US forces did not fire first as the evidence would later prove. GPS locaters on the convoy, time-line records and radio traffic, clearly establish where the US forces were and that they were coming under fire from the two border outposts inside Pakistan.
The Humvee is an easily identifiable target for the Paki’s to see and further, why would they be shooting into Afghanistan’s territory?
We may never know the real reason the Paki’s started shooting, but chances are they firing started because of a rogue element, a few soldiers with a deep hatred for US soldiers ready to exploit any excuse to take a pot shot at them and then it escalated.
But, opening fire on a US soldier is never a good idea and the return fire came not so much from the convoy itself, but an unexpected and totally devastating airstrike that virtually obliterated the reinforced border positions.
The fragile Pakistani government walks a tight rope between appeasing the masses of radicalized, anti-American Muslims and the more centrist elected officials, therefore they could not under any circumstances accept responsibility for the humiliating firefight. Besides, their honor was at stake, and so they did what they have always done in such embarrassing cases, they lied to avoid responsibility and blamed the U.S. After this incident the Paki’s used this as an excuse to close off Pakistan’s borders to US supply trucks. The U.S. responded by doing a Berlin Style airlift, which cost us about $110 million a month, but it avoided Pakistan completely.
Three days ago the situation was finally resolved when Hillary Clinton tendered an apology to Pakistan. So we told a big fib to save the $110 million a month. This is the nature of diplomacy and sometimes it makes you want to throw up. But, now you know the real story, absent the rhetoric. For the original story click here.
Here is a Pakistani video after the attack.
You can be “gunfired” from three-quarters of a mile away?
Yes, Libby actually you can, but I think in this case they were much closer. It’s not very accurate gun fire, but snipers have been known to shoot people over a mile and half away.
You should read the Pakistani spin on this incident. You would think that US-NATO soldiers attacked a Pakistani post just to kill a few soldiers because they were of a different religion. It was enlightening to read this post.