Peshawar: At least 25 Pakistani security officials, including two officers were killed and 15 others injured when NATO helicopters opened fire on Salala check-post in Mohmand tribal region near Afghan border, officials sources said on Saturday.
The Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) said in a statement that the helicopters “carried out unprovoked and indiscriminate firing.” on Pakistani check-post, killing 24 and injuring 13 others.
The attack took place around 2 a.m. Pakistan time (+5 GMT) at the Salala checkpoint in the Baizai area of Mohmand, where Pakistani troops are fighting Taliban militants. The sources said that the dead and injured were shifted to a nearby hospital where condition of several personnel were critical.
According to The News Tribe’s correspondent in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad, the two officers who were killed identified as Major Majid and Captain Usman.
Pakistan state TV, PTV said the helicopters killed 25 Pakistani soldiers in the incident. The helicopters attacked two checkpoints around 1,000 feet apart from each other, one of them twice, and two officers were among the dead, said a government official in Mohmand and a security official in Peshawar, the main city in Pakistan’s northwest.
NATO confirmed the attack and said they were gathering information regarding the incident. U.S.-led coalition says it is investigating an incident that occurred along the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, in which its helicopters were accused of killing 25 Pakistani soldiers.
Analysts in Pakistan said incident is a major blow to already strained relations between Islamabad and U.S.-led forces fighting in Afghanistan. It will add to perceptions in Pakistan that the American presence in the region is malevolent, and to resentment toward the weak government in Islamabad for co-operating with Washington.
In retaliation, the Pakistan government closed a key border crossing that Nato uses to move supplies to the war in neighboring Afghanistan.
Just a day ago Six children were among seven civilians killed in a Nato airstrike in southern Afghanistan. The deaths occurred on Wednesday in the Zhare district of Kandahar Province, an area described by coalition forces as largely pacified in recent months.
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