First NATO trucks cross Pakistan border

A driver washes his face near a truck carrying NATO supplies at the Pakistani-Afghan border, in Chaman, Pakistan, Thursday, July 5, 2012

CHAMAN, Pakistan (AP) -- The first trucks carrying supplies to American and NATO troops in Afghanistan crossed the Pakistani border Thursday after a seven-month closure of the supply routes ended earlier this week.

Pakistan closed the routes in retaliation for American airstrikes in November that killed 24 border troops. The decision Tuesday to reopen them, after the U.S. apologized for the killings, marked an easing of strains in the relationship in recent months. The Americans have said they did not intentionally target Pakistani forces, but Pakistan disputed that.

In the port city of Karachi, truckers were preparing for the trip. Thousands of trucks and tankers have been stuck at ports in Karachi waiting for the transit ban to be lifted as diplomatic wrangling dragged on.

"Today, almost after eight months, NATO supply has been started. I am taking NATO cargo to Peshawar where this cargo will be shifted to trailers taking the same to Kabul," said driver Javed Iqbal.

The journey is a perilous one, as the Taliban and other militant groups have threatened to attack supply vehicles in Pakistani territory. Before the closure, hundreds of supply trucks, which travel in convoys, were targeted in different areas of the country.

Huge challenges still divide the U.S. and Pakistan - a country considered crucial to American plans to wind down the war in Afghanistan. The U.S. accuses Pakistan of supporting Taliban militants who attack American troops in Afghanistan and demands an end to such support. U.S. drone strikes in the border regions have infuriated Pakistanis.

Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf said the deadlock over the supply line closure had threatened to hurt Pakistan's relations with NATO member countries. He said Pakistan wants to facilitate the drawdown of NATO forces in Afghanistan in order to promote peace and stability there.

Pakistan made it clear that its red lines should be respected, he said, a reference to the demand for the U.S. to respect Pakistani sovereignty.

Pakistan and the U.S. also differed over how much the U.S. should pay Pakistan to transit trucks through its territory. In the end they appeared to compromise with the U.S. issuing an apology but paying no extra transit fees than the $250 per truck that it was previously paying.

Pakistan is already facing domestic backlash, given rampant anti-American sentiment in the country and the government's failure to force the U.S. to stop drone strikes targeting militants and accede to other demands made by parliament.

President Barack Obama, in the midst of a re-election battle, faces criticism from Republicans who are angry his administration apologized to a country allegedly giving safe haven to militants attacking American troops in Afghanistan.

During the closure, the U.S. was forced to use more costly and lengthy routes through the former Soviet Union.

The reopening could save the U.S. hundreds of millions of dollars because Pakistan's blockade forced Washington to rely more heavily on longer, costlier routes that lead into Afghanistan through Central Asia. Pakistan is also expected to gain financially, since the U.S. intends to free up $1.1 billion in military aid that has been frozen for the past year

A paramilitary official at the Chaman border crossing, Fazal Bari, said the first truck moved across the border around noon local time and a second truck crossed a few hours later. Two other trucks were waiting on the Pakistani side of the border because of questions about their paperwork, he said.

Few trucks had been expected to cross in the first days following the reopening.

After the routes were closed, trucking companies pulled almost all of their vehicles back to ports in Karachi to better protect them and getting from the port city to the Chaman crossing in Baluchistan province can take days. They must also be loaded with supplies and cleared through customs in Karachi, which can take time.

U.S. officials had expected the first trucks carrying NATO supplies to begin crossing into Afghanistan on Wednesday, but bureaucratic delays held that up.

Chaman is one of two crossings used by trucks carrying supplies to Afghanistan. The other, known as the Torkham crossing, is further north in the Khyber Pass, a high mountainous area far from waiting shipments. No crossing was expected there on Thursday.

The chairman of Port Qasim, Mohammad Shafi, said Thursday that more than 2,500 NATO containers and vehicles have been held at the facility since the blockade began.

Getting them back on the road will take time, he said, due to paperwork and customs clearance procedures.

"Once we do that, we will be able to let the supplies leave for Afghanistan," he said. By late Thursday, only a handful of trucks had actually left Port Qasim, said Shafi, citing paperwork and customs clearances.

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Pakistan: Al-Qaida No. 2 at house hit by US drone

A CIA drone strike Monday, June 4, 2012, targeted al-Qaida's second in command, Abu Yahia al-Libi, in Pakistan

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) -- Pakistan has evidence that al-Qaida's second-in-command was in a house destroyed by a U.S. drone strike in the country's northwest tribal region, but it is unclear whether he was killed, intelligence officials said Tuesday.

U.S. officials have said they were targeting Abu Yahya al-Libi in Monday's strike in Khassu Khel village in the North Waziristan tribal area and were "optimistic" he was among those killed. They spoke on condition of anonymity because of the classified nature of the drone program.

If al-Libi is confirmed killed, he would be the latest in the dozen-plus senior commanders removed in the clandestine U.S. war against al-Qaida since Navy SEALs killed Osama bin Laden last year.

Militants and residents in the area told Pakistani agents that al-Libi was in the house when it was hit, Pakistani intelligence officials said. They said the mud and brick house was completely destroyed in the attack.

A vehicle used by al-Libi was destroyed during the strike, said one of the officials. Agents intercepted a militant phone call indicating an Arab was killed in the attack, but it is unclear if they were talking about al-Libi, who was born in Libya, said the official.

A local Taliban chief said al-Libi's guard and driver were killed in the strike, but the al-Qaida commander was not there. Al-Libi did survive a previous strike, said the Taliban chief.

The intelligence officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. The Taliban spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of being targeted by the Pakistani army.

The White House maintains a list of terrorist targets to be killed or captured, compiled by the military and the CIA and ultimately approved by the president.

The U.S. has stepped up drone strikes in Pakistan recently, carrying out seven in less than two weeks. The flurry follows a relative lull driven by tensions between Washington and Islamabad over American airstrikes last year that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.

Pakistan seized the opportunity to renegotiate its relationship with the U.S. and demanded Washington stop drone strikes in the country - a demand the U.S. has ignored. The attacks are unpopular in Pakistan because many people believe they mostly kill civilians, an allegation disputed by the U.S.

Pakistan called Deputy U.S. Ambassador Richard Hoagland to the Foreign Ministry on Tuesday to protest the drone strikes.

"He was informed that the drone strikes were unlawful, against international law and a violation of Pakistan's sovereignty," said a statement sent by the Foreign Ministry to reporters.

Members of the Pakistani government and military have supported the strikes in the past, but that cooperation has come under strain as the relationship between the two countries has deteriorated.

The State Department's Rewards for Justice program had set a $1 million reward for information leading to al-Libi, who had filmed numerous propaganda videos urging attacks on U.S. targets after he escaped a prison at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan in 2005.

Al-Libi took the second-in-command spot when Egyptian-born Ayman al-Zawahri took charge of al-Qaida after bin Laden's death. As al-Qaida's de facto general manager, al-Libi is responsible for running the group's day-to-day operations in Pakistan's tribal areas and manages outreach to al-Qaida's regional affiliates.

"This is one of the more prominent names" among the targets of drone strikes in Pakistan, added former CIA officer Paul Pillar.

He said al-Libi's death would help bolster the CIA's push to continue the drone program despite the continued political resistance from Pakistan and collateral damage.

Al-Libi's death would be "another reason not to accept Pakistan's demand for an end to drone wars," added Brookings Institute's Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer and adviser to the White House on Afghanistan and Pakistan policy.

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Obama on Afghan: Leave on time, no 'perfect' end

US President Barack Obama

CHICAGO (AP) -- President Barack Obama and leaders around the globe locked in place an Afghanistan exit path Monday that will still keep their troops fighting and dying there for two more years, acknowledging there never will be point at which they can say, "This is all done. This is perfect."

Obama, presiding over a 50-nation war coalition summit in his hometown, summed up the mood by saying the Afghanistan that will be left behind will be stable enough for them to depart - essentially good enough after a decade of war- but still loaded with troubles.

The war that began in the weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks will finish at the end of 2014.

"I don't think there's ever going to be an optimal point where we say, `This is all done. This is perfect. This is just the way we wanted it,'" Obama said as the NATO summit closed. "This is a process, and it's sometimes a messy process."

Obama never spoke of victory.

Afghan forces for the first time will take over the lead of the combat mission by the middle of 2013, a milestone moment in a long, costly transition of control. Even in a backup role, U.S. forces and all the rest will face surprise attacks and bombings until the war's end.

Wary of creating a vacuum in a volatile region, the nations also promised a lasting partnership with Afghanistan, meaning many years of contributing tax dollars, personnel and political capital after the end of their soldiers' combat.

The United States has already cut its own deal with Afghanistan along those lines, including a provision that allows U.S. military trainers and special forces to remain in Afghanistan after the war closes.

In an escalating election-year environment, Obama was as at the center of the action in Chicago, beaming and boasting about the city's performance in hosting the event. Noisy protesters loaded the city's streets at times, which Obama called just the kind of free expression NATO defends.

Tensions with Pakistan undermined some of the choreographed unity. Pakistan has not yet agreed to end the closure of key transit routes into Afghanistan - retaliation for American airstrikes that accidentally killed 24 Pakistani soldiers months ago - and the issue hung over the summit.

Obama had no official talks with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, although the two chatted briefly. Obama spoke of progress on the standoff but he added: "I don't want to paper over real challenges there. There's no doubt that there have been tensions."

On Afghanistan, led by Obama, the partners are in essence staying the course. They stuck with a timeline long established and underscored that there will be no second-guessing the decision about when to leave.

Since 2010, they have been planning to finish the war at the end of 2014, even as moves by nations such as France to pull combat troops out early have tested the strength of the coalition. The shift to have Afghan forces take the lead of the combat mission next year has also been expected. Leaders presented it as a significant turning point in the war.

It will be "the moment when throughout Afghanistan people can look out and see their own troops and police stepping up to the challenge," said the NATO chief, Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

What the world is poised to leave behind is an Afghanistan still riddled with poverty, corruption and political instability.

Yet, out of money and patience, the U.S.-led partnership said it is confident Afghanistan will be stable and prepared enough to at least be able to protect itself - and, in turn, prevent its territory from becoming a launching pad for international terrorism.

Questioned about what will happen if Afghanistan eventually falls apart, Obama signaled there is no turning back. "I think that the timetable that we've established is a sound one, it is a responsible one. Are there risks involved in it? Absolutely."

British Prime Minister David Cameron said the leaders were "making a decisive and enduring commitment to the long-term future of Afghanistan. The message to the Afghan people is that we will not desert them. And the message to the insurgency is equally clear: You cannot win on the battlefield. You should stop fighting and start talking."

The political stakes are high for the U.S. president, who will go before voters in November with tens of thousands more troops in Afghanistan than when we took office. His emphasis will remain that he is methodically winding down the war after closing out the one in Iraq; U.S. voters desperate for better economic times have long stopped approving of the war mission.

NATO said it will keep providing "long-term political and practical support" to Afghanistan after 2014 but added: "This will not be a combat mission."

Despite the size of the coalition, the war remains a United States-dominated effort.

The U.S. has 90,000 of the 130,000 foreign forces in the war. Obama has pledged to shrink that to 68,000 by the end of September but has offered no details on the withdrawal pace after that, other than to say it will be gradual.

The fighting alliance called negotiation the key to ending the insurgency in Afghanistan, but avoided mentioning the Taliban by name. The insurgents walked away from U.S.-led talks in March, and urged the NATO nations to follow the lead of France in pledging to remove combat forces ahead of schedule.

The alliance agreed on a fundraising goal to underwrite the Afghan armed forces after the international fighting forces depart.

The force of about 230,000 would cost about $4.1 billion annually - the bulk of it paid by the United States and countries that have not been part of the fighting force.

U.S. and British officials said during the summit that pledges total about $1 billion a year so far and that fundraising is on track to make up the rest. French President Francois Hollande said the U.S. had requested a little less than $200 million but was non-committal, saying France was "not bound by what Germany or other countries might do."

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Pakistan blocks Twitter over contentious tweets

 Pakistan blocks Twitter

ISLAMABAD (AP) -- Pakistan blocked the social networking website Twitter for several hours because it refused to remove tweets considered offensive to Islam, said one of the country's top telecommunications officials.

The tweets were promoting a competition on Facebook to post images of Islam's Prophet Muhammad, said Mohammad Yaseen, chairman of the Pakistan Telecommunication's Authority. Many Muslims regard depictions of the prophet, even favorable ones, as blasphemous.

The government restored access to Twitter before midnight Sunday, about eight hours after it initially blocked access, possibly because of public criticism it received for its censorship.

Twitter spokesman Gabriel Stricker said the company had not taken down any tweets or made any other changes before Pakistan stopped blocking the site.

Yaseen said Sunday afternoon that Pakistan's Ministry of Information Technology had ordered the telecommunications authority to block Twitter because the company refused to remove the offending tweets.

The ministry informed Yaseen to restore access to Twitter Sunday evening, but he did not know what led to the decision.

Yaseen said Facebook had agreed to address Pakistan's concern about the competition.

Facebook confirmed in a written statement that it blocked access to the content in Pakistan. The site noted that it occasionally restricts content when it is illegal or offensive out of respect for local laws and culture.

A top court in Pakistan ordered a ban on Facebook in 2010 amid anger over a similar competition. The ban was lifted about two weeks later, after Facebook blocked the particular page in Pakistan. The Pakistani government said at the time that it would continue to monitor other major websites for anti-Islamic links and content.

Even when Twitter was blocked Sunday, many people based in Pakistan continued to use the website by employing programs that disguise the user's location. There was widespread criticism of the government's action by those on Twitter, who tend to be more liberal than average Pakistanis.

"Another cheap moral stunt by Pakistan," tweeted liberal Pakistani columnist Nadeem Paracha.

The 2010 Facebook controversy sparked many in Pakistan's liberal elite to question why Pakistanis could not be entrusted to decide for themselves whether or not to look at a website. Some observers noted that Pakistan had gone further than several other Muslim countries by banning Facebook, and said it showed the rise of conservative Islam in the country.

There were a handful of protests against Facebook back in 2010, often organized by student members of radical Islamic groups. Some of the protesters carried signs advocating holy war against the website for allowing the competition page to be posted in the first place.

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Prominent Pakistani acid victim commits suicide

People carry the body of a Pakistani acid attack victim Fakhra Younnus

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistani acid attack victim Fakhra Younus had endured more than three dozen surgeries over more than a decade to repair her severely damaged face and body when she finally decided life was no longer worth living.

The 33-year-old former dancing girl — who was allegedly attacked by her then-husband, an ex-lawmaker and son of a political powerhouse — jumped from the sixth floor of a building in Rome, where she had been living and receiving treatment.

Her March 17 suicide and the return of her body to Pakistan on Sunday reignited furor over the case, which received significant international attention at the time of the attack. Her death came less than a month after a Pakistani filmmaker won the country's first Oscar for a documentary about acid attack victims.

Younus' story highlights the horrible mistreatment many women face in Pakistan's conservative, male-dominated culture and is a reminder that the country's rich and powerful often appear to operate with impunity. Younus' ex-husband, Bilal Khar, was eventually acquitted, but many believe he used his connections to escape the law's grip — a common occurrence in Pakistan.

More than 8,500 acid attacks, forced marriages and other forms of violence against women were reported in Pakistan in 2011, according to The Aurat Foundation, a women's rights organization. Because the group relied mostly on media reports, the figure is likely an undercount.

"The saddest part is that she realized that the system in Pakistan was never going to provide her with relief or remedy," Nayyar Shabana Kiyani, an activist at The Aurat Foundation, said of Younus. "She was totally disappointed that there was no justice available to her."

Younus was a teenage dancing girl working in the red light district of the southern city of Karachi when she met her future husband, the son of Ghulam Mustafa Khar, a former governor of Pakistan's largest province, Punjab. The unusual pairing was the younger Khar's third marriage. He was in his mid-30s at the time.

The couple was married for three years, but Younus eventually left him because he allegedly physically and verbally abused her. She claimed that he came to her mother's house while she was sleeping in May 2000 and poured acid all over her in the presence of her 5-year-old son from a different man.

Tehmina Durrani, Ghulam Mustafa Khar's ex-wife and his son's stepmother, became an advocate for Younus after the attack, drawing international attention to the case. She said that Younus' injuries were the worst she had ever seen on an acid attack victim.

"So many times we thought she would die in the night because her nose was melted and she couldn't breathe," said Durrani, who wrote a book about her own allegedly abusive relationship with the elder Khar. "We used to put a straw in the little bit of her mouth that was left because the rest was all melted together."

She said Younus, whose life had always been hard, became a liability to her family, for whom she was once a source of income.

Fakhra Younnus before (L) and after (R)

"Her life was a parched stretch of hard rock on which nothing bloomed," Durrani wrote in a column in The News after Younus' suicide.

Younus' ex-husband grew up in starkly different circumstances, amid the wealth and power of the country's feudal elite, and counts Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar as a cousin.

Bilal Khar once again denied carrying out the acid attack in a TV interview following her suicide, suggesting a different man with the same name committed the crime. He claimed Younus killed herself because she didn't have enough money, not because of her horrific injuries, and criticized the media for hounding him about the issue.

"You people should be a little considerate," said Khar. "I have three daughters and when they go to school people tease them."

In February, Younus said in one of her last interviews that powerful Pakistanis brutally treat ordinary citizens and "don't know how painful they make others' lives."

"I want such people to be treated in the same way" as they treat people whose lives they ruin, she told Geo TV over the telephone from Rome.

Younus was energized when the Pakistani government enacted a new set of laws last year that explicitly criminalized acid attacks and mandated that convicted attackers would serve a minimum sentence of 14 years, said Durrani. She hoped to return someday to get justice once her health stabilized.

"She said, 'When I come back, I will reopen the case, and I'll fight myself,' and she was a fighter," Durrani said.

Durrani had to battle with both Younus' ex-husband and the government to send her to Italy, where the Italian government paid for her treatment and provided her money to live on and send her child to school. Pakistani officials argued that sending Younus to Italy would give the country a bad name, Durrani said.

Younus was happy when Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy won an Oscar for her documentary about acid attack victims in February, but was worried about being forgotten since she wasn't profiled in the film, said Durrani.

Durrani said Younus' case should be a reminder that the Pakistani government needs to do much more to prevent acid attacks and other forms of violence against women, and also help the victims.

"I think this whole country should be extremely embarrassed that a foreign country took responsibility for a Pakistani citizen for 13 years because we could give her nothing, not justice, not security," said Durrani.

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How Pakistan helps the U.S. drone campaign

US Drone

(Reuters) - The death of a senior al Qaeda leader in a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan's tribal badlands, the first strike in almost two months, signaled that the U.S.-Pakistan intelligence partnership is still in operation despite political tensions.

The Jan 10 strike -- and its follow-up two days later -- were joint operations, a Pakistani security source based in the tribal areas told Reuters.

They made use of Pakistani "spotters" on the ground and demonstrated a level of coordination that both sides have sought to downplay since tensions erupted in January 2011 with the killing of two Pakistanis by a CIA contractor in Lahore.

"Our working relationship is a bit different from our political relationship," the source told Reuters, requesting anonymity. "It's more productive."

U.S. and Pakistani sources told Reuters that the target of the Jan 10 attack was Aslam Awan, a Pakistani national from Abbottabad, the town where Osama bin Laden was killed last May by a U.S. commando team.

They said he was targeted in a strike by a U.S.-operated drone directed at what news reports said was a compound near the town of Miranshah in the border province of North Waziristan.

That strike broke an undeclared eight-week hiatus in attacks by the armed, unmanned drones that patrol the tribal areas and are a key weapon in U.S. President Barack Obama's counter-terrorism strategy.

The sources described Awan, also known by the nom-de-guerre Abdullah Khorasani, as a significant figure in the remaining core leadership of al Qaeda, which U.S. officials say has been sharply reduced by the drone campaign. Most of the drone attacks are conducted as part of a clandestine CIA operation.

The Pakistani source, who helped target Awan, could not confirm that he was killed, but the U.S. official said he was. European officials said Awan had spent time in London and had ties to British extremists before returning to Pakistan.

The source, who says he runs a network of spotters primarily in North and South Waziristan, described for the first time how U.S.-Pakistani cooperation on strikes works, with his Pakistani agents keeping close tabs on suspected militants and building a pattern of their movements and associations.

"We run a network of human intelligence sources," he said. "Separately, we monitor their cell and satellite phones.

"Thirdly, we run joint monitoring operations with our U.S. and UK friends," he added, noting that cooperation with British intelligence was also extensive.

Pakistani and U.S. intelligence officers, using their own sources, hash out a joint "priority of targets lists" in regular face-to-face meetings, he said.

"Al Qaeda is our top priority," he said.

He declined to say where the meetings take place.

Once a target is identified and "marked," his network coordinates with drone operators on the U.S. side. He said the United States bases drones outside Kabul, likely at Bagram airfield about 25 miles north of the capital.

From spotting to firing a missile "hardly takes about two to three hours," he said.

DRONE STRIKES A SORE POINT WITH PAKISTAN

It was impossible to verify the source's claims and American experts, who decline to discuss the drone program, say the Pakistanis' cooperation has been less helpful in the past.

U.S. officials have complained that when information on drone strikes was shared with the Pakistanis beforehand, the targets were often tipped off, allowing them to escape.

Drone strikes have been a sore point with the public and Pakistani politicians, who describe them as violations of sovereignty that produce unacceptable civilian casualties.

The last strike before January had been on Nov 16, 10 days before 24 Pakistani soldiers were killed in what NATO says was an inadvertent cross-border attack on a Pakistani border post.

That incident sent U.S.-Pakistan relations into the deepest crisis since Islamabad joined the U.S.-led war on militancy following the Sept 11, 2001 attacks. On Thursday, Pakistani foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar said ties were "on hold" while Pakistan completes a review of the alliance.

The United States sees Pakistan as critical to its efforts to wind down the war in Afghanistan, where U.S.-led NATO forces are battling a Taliban insurgency.

Some U.S. and Pakistani officials say that both sides are trying to improve ties. As part of this process, a U.S. official said, it is possible that some permanent changes could be made in the drone program which could slow the pace of attacks.

The security source said very few innocent people had been killed in the strikes. When a militant takes shelter in a house or compound which is then bombed, "the ones who are harboring him, they are equally responsible," he said.

"When they stay at a host house, they (the hosts) obviously have sympathies for these guys."

He denied that Pakistan helped target civilians.

"If ... others say innocents have been targeted, it's not true," he said. "We never target civilians or innocents."

The New America Foundation policy institute says that of 283 reported strikes from 2004 to Nov 16, 2011, between 1,717 and 2,680 people were killed. Between 293 and 471 were thought to be civilians -- approximately 17 percent of those killed.

The Brookings Institution, however, says civilian deaths are high, reporting in 2009 that "for every militant killed, 10 or more civilians also died." Pakistan's interior minister, Rehman Malik, also said in April 2011 that "the majority of victims are innocent civilians."

Still, despite its public stance, Pakistan has quietly supported the drone program since Obama ramped up air strikes when he took office in 2009 and even asked for more flights.

According to a U.S. State Department cable published by anti-secrecy organization WikiLeaks, Pakistan's chief of army staff General Ashfaq Kayani in February 2008 asked Admiral William J. Fallon, then-commander of U.S. Central Command, for increased surveillance and round-the-clock drone coverage over North and South Waziristan.

The security source said Pakistan's powerful spy agency, the Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence, also was supportive of the strikes, albeit privately.

Pakistan: NATO Helicopter Attack, 24 Troops Reportedly Dead

Pakistan

ISLAMABAD (AP) - Pakistan blocked vital supply routes for U.S.-led troops in Afghanistan on Saturday after coalition helicopters and fighter jets allegedly killed 24 Pakistani troops at two posts along a mountainous frontier that serves as a safe haven for militants.

The incident was a major blow to American efforts to rebuild an already tattered alliance vital to winding down the 10-year-old Afghan war. Islamabad called the carnage in one of its tribal areas a "grave infringement" of the country's sovereignty and warned it could affect future cooperation with Washington, which is seeking Pakistan's help in bringing Afghan insurgents to the negotiating table.

A NATO spokesman said it was likely that coalition airstrikes caused Pakistani casualties, but an investigation was being conducted to determine the details. If confirmed, it would be the deadliest friendly fire incident by NATO against Pakistani troops since the Afghan war began a decade ago.

A prolonged closure of Pakistan's two Afghan border crossings to NATO supplies could cause serious problems for the coalition. The U.S., which is the largest member of the NATO force in Afghanistan, ships more than 30 percent of its non-lethal supplies through Pakistan. The coalition has alternative routes through Central Asia into northern Afghanistan, but they are costlier and less efficient.

Pakistan temporarily closed one of its Afghan crossings to NATO supplies last year after U.S. helicopters accidentally killed two Pakistani soldiers. Suspected militants took advantage of the impasse to launch attacks against stranded or rerouted trucks carrying NATO supplies. The government reopened the border after about 10 days when the U.S. apologized. NATO said at the time the relatively short closure did not significantly affect its ability to keep its troops supplied.

But the reported casualties are much greater this time, and the relationship between Pakistan and the U.S. has severely deteriorated over the last year, especially following the covert American raid that killed Osama bin Laden in a Pakistani garrison town in May. Islamabad was outraged it wasn't told about the operation beforehand.

The Pakistani army said Saturday that NATO helicopters and fighter jets carried out an "unprovoked" attack on two of its border posts in the Mohmand tribal area before dawn, killing 24 soldiers and wounding 13 others. The troops responded in self-defense "with all available weapons," an army statement said.

Pakistan army chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani condemned the attack, calling it a "blatant and unacceptable act," according to the statement.

A spokesman for NATO forces, Brig. Gen. Carsten Jacobson, said Afghan and coalition troops were operating in the border area of eastern Afghanistan when "a tactical situation" prompted them to call in close air support. It is "highly likely" that the airstrikes caused Pakistani casualties, he told BBC television.

"My most sincere and personal heartfelt condolences go out to the families and loved ones of any members of Pakistan security forces who may have been killed or injured," said Gen. John Allen, the top overall commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, in a statement.

The border issue is a major source of tension between Islamabad and Washington, which is committed to withdrawing its combat troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.

Much of the violence in Afghanistan is carried out by insurgents who are based just across the border in Pakistan. Coalition forces are not allowed to cross the frontier to attack the militants. However, the militants sometimes fire artillery and rockets across the line, reportedly from locations close to Pakistani army posts.

American officials have repeatedly accused Pakistani forces of supporting - or turning a blind eye - to militants using its territory for cross-border attacks. But militants based in Afghanistan have also been attacking Pakistan recently, prompting complaints from Islamabad.

The two posts that were attacked Saturday were located about 1,000 feet apart on a mountain top and were set up recently to stop Pakistani Taliban militants holed up in Afghanistan from crossing the border and staging attacks, said local government and security officials.

There was no militant activity in the area when the alleged NATO attack occurred, local officials said. Some of the soldiers were standing guard, while others were asleep, they said, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

Pakistan army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said map references of all of the force's border posts have been given to NATO several times.

Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani summoned U.S. Ambassador Cameron Munter to protest the alleged NATO strike, according to a Foreign Ministry statement. It said the attack was a "grave infringement of Pakistan's sovereignty" and could have serious repercussions on Pakistan's cooperation with NATO.

Munter said in a statement that he regretted any Pakistani deaths and promised to work closely with Islamabad to investigate the incident.

Pakistan moved quickly to close both its Afghan border crossings to NATO supplies, a reminder of the leverage the country has.

A Pakistani customs official told The Associated Press that he received verbal orders Saturday to stop all NATO supplies from crossing the border through Torkham in either direction. The operator of a terminal at the border where NATO trucks park before they cross confirmed the closure. They spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

Saeed Ahmad, a spokesman for security forces at the other crossing in Chaman in southwest Pakistan, said that his crossing was also blocked following orders "from higher-ups."

The U.S., Pakistan, and Afghan militaries have long wrestled with the technical difficulties of patrolling a border that in many places is disputed or poorly marked. Saturday's incident took place a day after a meeting between NATO's Gen. Allen and Pakistan army chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani in Islamabad to discuss border operations.

The meeting tackled "coordination, communication and procedures ... aimed at enhancing border control on both sides," according to a statement from the Pakistani side.

The U.S. helicopter attack that killed two Pakistani soldiers on Sept. 30 of last year took place south of Mohmand in the Kurram tribal area. A joint U.S.-Pakistan investigation found that Pakistani soldiers fired at the two U.S. helicopters prior to the attack, a move the investigation team said was likely meant to notify the aircraft of their presence after they passed into Pakistani airspace several times.

A U.S. airstrike in June 2008 reportedly killed 11 Pakistani paramilitary troops during a clash between militants and coalition forces in the tribal region.

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NATO blunder in the northwest, Islamabad closes the "Khyber Pass"

Pakistani Soldiers

AFP - Pakistan said Saturday it would review all its agreements with Washington and NATO, especially in the diplomatic, military and intelligence, following the worst blunder of Westerners in Pakistan in a decade, which killed 26 soldiers. Following an extraordinary meeting of its main leaders, the Pakistani government has also ordered the Americans to withdraw within 15 days of the Shamsi air base, located in south-western Pakistan, and closed all supply routes for NATO in Afghanistan from its territory. The ministers and heads the largest of the army attended Saturday's meeting of the Committee for the Defence of the Government (DCC) under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, said the latter's office.

"The DCC decided to close with immediate effect logistic supply routes to NATO / ISAF (the NATO force in Afghanistan)," the source said. The vast majority of these supplies arrive by boat to Pakistan in Karachi (south), the country's main port, before being sent to Afghanistan by road. "The DCC has also decided to ask the U.S. to leave within fifteen days of the Shamsi air base" that would be used by the CIA as part of its drone strikes in Pakistani tribal areas bordering Afghanistan. Moreover, "the DCC decided that the government would completely rethink all its programs, activities and cooperation agreements with the United States, NATO and ISAF, including diplomatic, political, military and intelligence" announced Gilani's office.

Pakistan has accused NATO of killing up to 26 Pakistani soldiers in an attack before dawn Saturday in one of the tribal areas, the main rear base for Taliban insurgents and Al Qaeda who regularly attack NATO on Afghan soil. According to Islamabad, NATO helicopters bombed a Pakistani military post Baize, in the tribal district of Khyber. "They killed 26 soldiers and wounded 14," he told AFP Masood Kausar, the governor of KPK, Northwest Province of Pakistan, before paying tribute to the "martyrs". In the evening, a spokesman for ISAF, General German Carsten Jacobson, said Afghan forces and NATO operating in the Afghan province of Kunar called for air support had and it was " very likely that the air support (...) has caused losses "in Pakistan.

The officer assured that ground troops were now near the Pakistani border. Denouncing "a serious breach Pakistan's sovereignty and a violation of international law", Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has protested "in the strongest terms" with NATO and the United States, who lead the ISAF , providing the two-thirds of his troops. Gilani interrupted his weekend to return to Islamabad and talks with President Asif Ali Zardari and the leaders of the powerful army which has denounced an attack "deliberate" and "unacceptable." The Information Minister Firdous Ashiq Awan for his part believed that the attack would strengthen the anti-American sentiment among his compatriots.

The U.S. ambassador in Islamabad Cameron Munter, meanwhile, said his country would work "closely with Islamabad to investigate this incident." Pakistan has repeatedly criticized in recent years for violations of its airspace by ISAF. The latest crisis began in September 2010. Islamabad had then accused the force of killing three Pakistani soldiers and blocked the supply trucks of NATO for almost two weeks, until Washington apologizes. The United States regularly bombed the Taliban and Al Qaeda in the tribal areas with drone raids Islamabad denounces as lip service, as long as they do not kill many civilians.

Americans regularly accuse their ally Pakistan playing a double game and secretly supporting the Taliban to defend its strategic interests in Afghanistan, where NATO plans to withdraw all its combat troops by the end of 2014 . Already stormy relations between the two countries soured after the unilateral U.S. operation in which killed the head of al-Qaeda Osama bin Laden last May in Abbottabad, a garrison town in Northern Pakistan.

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