The top US military officer tried on Friday to tamp down tensions surrounding the escalating violence along Afghanistan’s southern border, including this week’s exchange of fire between US and Pakistan forces.
Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Pakistan’s military leaders reassured him in talks there last week that they have no intention of using force against US troops along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
“Things are very tense and very dangerous in Pakistan,” Mullen told a Pentagon news conference. “But that doesn’t mean the sky is falling, and it doesn’t mean we should ever overreact to the hair-trigger tension we are all feeling. Now more than ever is a time for teamwork, for calm.”
PHOTO: AFP
Mullen’s remarks came as Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari walked a fine line on the issue, saying on Friday that he still looks positively on US support to his nation despite the Thursday dustup on the border. But Zardari also warned the UN General Assembly on Thursday that Pakistan cannot allow its territory to “be violated by our friends.”
Asked about the cross-border clash as he appeared alongside US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice after an hour-long meeting with other key foreign ministers, Zardari said that “whenever we meet with our friends, we discuss all the weaknesses and definitely try to make them into our strengths.”
The five-minute firefight on Thursday underscores the murky nature of the relations between the US, Pakistan and Afghanistan and how they interact along what is a long, mountainous, ungoverned border riddled with safe havens for Taliban and al-Qaeda insurgents.
Pakistan has become increasingly vocal in its anger over US operations across the border, including a spate of missile and ground attacks aimed at insurgents in the tribal areas. US military commanders complain that Islamabad has been doing too little to prevent the Taliban and other militant groups from recruiting, training and resupplying in the border region.
Mullen acknowledged that the safe havens have gotten safer this year, and the insurgency more sophisticated. And he has launched a review of the military’s strategy in Afghanistan insisting that it also focus more broadly on Pakistan and even India, because the three are interwoven and must be dealt with in a comprehensive way.
Thursday’s clash began when Pakistanis fired on or sent flares at two US reconnaissance helicopters operating near the border.
The Pakistanis said the US choppers, which were escorting Afghan and US troops, had crossed into the tribal Pakistani areas, but Pentagon officials flatly deny that.
In response, officials have said that US ground forces fired warning shots at the Pakistanis, who returned fire.
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