NATO Blames Militants For Border Clash

A border clash that wounded several Pakistani and Afghan security personnel was sparked by insurgents in Afghanistan who fired at targets in both countries, apparently to stoke cross-border tensions, NATO said Saturday.

The alliance said it responded to the Thursday evening assault with artillery and a bomb, and had verified that its rounds had struck insurgent positions inside Afghanistan.

But the incident has prompted Pakistan to protest to NATO.

A Wana-based local officer, who did not want to be named because he was not authorized to speak on the subject, told CBS News late Friday that top Pakistani officials met to discuss the cross-border attack and reached the conclusion that the raid was carried out by foreign forces stationed across the border in the turbulent Paktika province of Afghanistan.

CBS News' Sami Yousafzai reports that, following the cross-border assault in the Angoor Adda area (in which 11 people were injured, including nine security personnel), Islamabad strongly protested to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), led by the transatlantic military alliance.

According to a statement from NATO headquarters in Kabul, ISAF officials believed the insurgent attack was specifically intended to spark a border conflict.

At about 8:30 pm, Afghan Border Police and a Pakistani military unit each reported receiving indirect fire.

Afterwards, NATO forces tracked the fire to two peaks within Afghanistan and hit them with artillery and one GBU-13 bomb dropped from an F-15 aircraft. All ISAF rounds were verified to have hit the origins of insurgent fire, the statement claimed.

Late Friday night, Pakistans's military spokesman Gen. Athar Abbas alleged the six mortar shells were fired from Afghanistan.

"Our assessment is that this was an attempt to create a border incident," NATO spokesman Mark Laity said.

According to Pakistan's army, six mortar rounds appeared to have targeted a military post in Angore Adda in South Waziristan on Thursday, seriously wounding six Pakistani troops, lightly wounding two other troops and also injuring two civilians in a nearby market. Pakistani forces immediately returned fire.

Asked Saturday to respond to NATO's statement that militants were responsible for the incident and that NATO had not struck Pakistani positions, Pakistan army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas insisted that Pakistan still had its suspicions.

"It was a precision engagement which destroyed the post," Abbas said.

"It doesn't make sense that anybody else was fighting."

NATO said it had reports that four Afghan border police were also wounded in the incident.

Afghan and Pakistani troops have skirmished repeatedly along the border over the years, despite urgings from U.S. officials that they improve their coordination.

The border areas are considered havens for Taliban and al Qaeda-linked militants who often travel between the two countries. Pakistan has been accused of not doing enough to crack down on militants operating on its side.

The clash came amid already high tensions between the neighboring nations, whose border areas have often been the scene of skirmishes between security forces as well as militants.

It also occurred about a month after a high-profile border incident in which Pakistan said 11 of its soldiers died when U.S. aircraft bombed their post.