ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Sept. 22, 2008
Officials: Pakistan Fires On U.S. Copters
U.S. Denies Incursion By Helicopters; Afghans Want Joint Military Force At Pakistan Border
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Afghanistan wants to set up a joint military force that would have the power to operate on both sides of the border with Pakistan, where militants have found safe haven. (AP)
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Play CBS Video Video Pakistan Truck Bomb Video Authorities in Pakistan released dramatic video of the truck bombing that destroyed a Marriot Hotel in the capital, Islamabad. The attack killed at least 53 people. Elizabeth Palmer reports.
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Video Pakistani Marriot Hotel Bombed Often home to Western guests, the Marriot Hotel in Pakistan's capital city of Islamabad was destroyed by a truck bomb believed to have been set by terrorists. Sheila MacVicar reports from London.
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Photo Essay Islamabad Hotel Blast More than 50 killed, hundreds wounded as terrorists strike luxury hotel in Pakistan.
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Fast Facts Pakistan Learn about the people, economy and history.
The U.S. denied there was any incursion but the reports threatened new rifts between Washington and its key anti-terror ally days after a truck bomb killed 53 people at a luxury hotel in Islamabad.
Nuclear-armed Pakistan is under growing U.S. pressure to act against al Qaeda and Taliban insurgents sheltering in its border region and blamed for rising attacks on coalition troops in Afghanistan as well as suicide bombings in Pakistan.
Afghanistan wants to set up a joint military force that would have the power to operate on both sides of the border with Pakistan, where militants have found safe haven.
Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardaksaid said Monday that he has proposed creating a joint force to include coalition forces operating on Afghan territory and Pakistanis operating on their side.
"A terrorist does not recognize any boundaries," Wardak said. "So to fight them I think we have to eventually come up with some arrangement together with our neighbor, Pakistan - that we should have a combined and joint task force of coalition, Afghan and Pakistanis to be able to operate on both sides of the borders regardless of which side."
U.S. officials believe that al Qaeda's leaders, including Osama bin Laden, are hiding somewhere along the border.
Late Monday, Dubai-based TV channel Al-Arabiya said it had received a tape from a shadowy group calling itself "Fedayeen Al-Islam" - Arabic for "Islam commandos" - claiming responsibility for the bombing and calling on Pakistan to end cooperation with the United States.
A spate of suspected U.S. missile strikes into the lawless border region and a Sept. 3 raid by U.S. commandos said to have killed 15 people have highlighted U.S. impatience and angered many Pakistanis.
In the latest such alleged breech, two U.S. helicopters crossed one mile late Sunday into Pakistan in the Alwara Mandi area in North Waziristan, two intelligence officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
Citing informants in the field, they said Pakistani troops and tribesmen responded with small arms fire, but it was not clear whether the bullets were aimed at the choppers or were warning shots.
The helicopters did not return fire and re-entered Afghan airspace without landing, the officials said.
That account was denied by Pentagon officials.
"There was no such incursion, there was no such event," said Defense Department spokesman Col. Gary L. Keck.
Pakistan's army said it had no information on the reported incursion across the poorly demarcated border.
Pakistan's military chief and newly elected President Asif Ali Zardari have said the missile strikes and incursions were violations of the country's sovereignty and only fueled extremist violence.
Zardari, who is expected to meet U.S. President George W. Bush in New York on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly this week, reiterated that he welcomed U.S. intelligence help, but not its troops.
"Give us the intelligence and we will do the job," he said in an interview with NBC television. "It's better done by our forces than yours."
Some 270 people were wounded in the Saturday night attack on the heavily guarded Marriott hotel in the capital Islamabad, while the dead included the Czech ambassador and two U.S. Department of Defense employees.
Most of the victims were Pakistanis, a fact that could bolster government efforts to present the struggle against the militants as its own battle, not one foisted upon it by Washington as many here think.
Al-Arabiya television said the group that claimed responsibility for the attack demanded an end to Pakistani-American cooperation against the militants and a halt to U.S. military operations in Pakistani tribal regions.
The U.S. Embassy in Islamabad warned its employees to limit their movement to travel to and from the Embassy and to shopping for essential items only.
It also warned all Americans to stay away from crowds, keep a low profile, and avoid setting patterns by varying times and routes for all required travel.
In Washington, State Department spokesman Robert Wood said the attack showed the need for Pakistanis, Afghans, and the U.S. to redouble efforts against extremists in the region.
"This was a heinous act that was committed by terrorists who have no interest in anything other than maiming and killing innocent civilians. And we're going to step up our efforts and work with the Pakistanis to do what we can," he said.
Interior Ministry chief Rehman Malik said Zardari, the prime minister and other top government officials were due to dine at the Marriott on Saturday, but they decided to change venue at the last minute.
However, a spokesman for the hotel owner denied this.
"We didn't have any reservation of such a dinner that the government official is talking about," Jamil Khawar told The Associated Press.
Malik told reporters that "perhaps the terrorists knew" that the Marriott was the venue of the government dinner, saying the decision to switch venues "saved the entire leadership."
Malik had said Sunday the Marriott was likely targeted because the attack would get tremendous attention. But Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said the bomber attacked the hotel only after security kept him from reaching Parliament or the premier's residence, both less than a mile away.
Pakistani officials and analysts have said they expect the investigation into the hotel to lead to the border regions.
But Amir Mohammad, an aide to prominent Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, said his chief was not involved and shared the nation's grief.
"We have our own targets and we execute our plans precisely with minimal loss of irrelevant or innocent people," Mehsud was quoted as saying by his spokesman.
Mehsud has also been blamed for the suicide attack that killed Zardari's wife, the pro-U.S. politician Benazir Bhutto.
Underscoring the deteriorating security, gunmen kidnapped Afghanistan's ambassador-designate Monday and killed his driver in the northwestern city of Peshawar.
Also in the northwest, a suicide bomber killed nine security officers at a checkpoint in the Swat valley, while police killed at least 10 militants in a gunbattle elsewhere, officials said.
British Airways said Monday it was temporarily suspending its flights to the country following the hotel attack.
The airline, which offered six flights to Pakistan each week, did not face a direct security threat, company spokesman Suhail Rehman said.
Meanwhile, Pakistan's army says a suicide car bomber killed nine troops in the country's volatile northwest. Army spokesman Maj. Murad Khan said the attacker detonated an explosives-laden vehicle at a checkpoint in Madian, a town in the Swat valley, on Monday. Three troops quickly succumbed to their injuries, and six more died despite the efforts of medics.
© MMVIII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The secrets of tennis legend 
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See all 81 CommentsPosted by poppitt2
The only people that would think they are doing that is the ones we are stopping from hurting innocent people all over the world. Of course they would think that, what else can they say.
Posted by hungry1968-1
No, just the liberals in the country. You spend your time fighting and arguing with your own people effectively running blocker for them, that''s the same thing, sounds a lot like being a traitor in reality.
BTW dogsoul is one of your GOPig fellow travellers - you shouldn''''t dismiss him so cavalierly.
Posted by usclimey
Typical liberal mindset once again, no one can even understand what your saying. Please try to convey a message coherently, that''s was typical liberal dribble.
Posted by hungry1968-1
It''s not a perfect world, things don''t work out how you plan sometimes. At least they try to solve problems. Liberals just lay down and say please don''t hurt me before the fight has even begun. Then sit around and belittle their own countrymen just for a few more votes. Typical.
Are you still at it on this subject. Boy, dogged is too weak for you. You and your President are two of a kind - get onto a BAD idea and WON''T LET GO!!!
BTW dogsoul is one of your GOPig fellow travellers - you shouldn''t dismiss him so cavalierly.
Posted by fedupwithit1
Something liberals are quite familiar with unfortunately.
Um.... it was a US Intelligence report that informed everyone that they didn''''t find any WMDs...
Posted by dogsoul
Typical liberal BS, never have any facts or you just plain lie to serve your cause. It wasn''t just US intelligence, it was several around the word, but liberal is neither man enough or honost enough to tell the truth it seems.
Posted by jocro12
It was you liberals that surrenered like cowards from the word go, no matter where we had to go.
Um.... it was a US Intelligence report that informed everyone that they didn''t find any WMDs...
We wouldnt let it happen either. "
WE wouldn''t let the bloods & crips get away with doing what Al Queda is doing - and would take the necessary steps to handle the situation ourselves to the best of our ability. If we were unable to do so & Canada WERE more capable of handling that situation, we would grant them the ability to take out the bloods & crips. What we WOULDN''T do is sit around & do little to nothing while refusing to let a more capable ally get the job done themselves...
See how that work you idiot?
"That account was denied by Pentagon officials.
"There was no such incursion, there was no such event," said Defense Department spokesman Col. Gary L. Keck."
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Guess they were warning shots, not heard. Really, do those on the ground think you could possibly hear small arms fire from the ground in an Apache helicopter?
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From above, "Interior Ministry chief Rehman Malik said Zardari, the prime minister and other top government officials were due to dine at the Marriott on Saturday, but they decided to change venue at the last minute.
However, a spokesman for the hotel owner denied this.
"We didn''t have any reservation of such a dinner that the government official is talking about," Jamil Khawar told The Associated Press.
Malik told reporters that "perhaps the terrorists knew" that the Marriott was the venue of the government dinner, saying the decision to switch venues "saved the entire leadership."
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In other words, "At least not after we were tipped-off."
Republicans are sooooo stupid.
Posted by guadalcanal
"The surveys agree that mortality is much higher than is typically held in political discussions about Iraq. The highest figure, from Opinion Business Research, a private survey firm in London, is 1.2 million through August 2007. It is also the most recent."
Not even close? Sounds closer than the Bush lowball estimates taken from the oft-discredited "bodycount.org" figures.
But let us also count the displaced refugees, the wounded, and otherwise harmed Iraqis, who suffer only because of Bush''s lies, a figure estimated at 10 million.
Regardless of whatever number you subscribe to, the fact that the numbers are the result of Bush''s lies is the part that the pro-war advocates constantly fail to acknowledge, this alone makes their point invalid.
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