Pakistan says NATO ignored pleas to end attack

The NATO airstrikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers lasted almost two hours and continued even after commanders at the bases pleaded with coalition forces to stop, Pakistan's military claimed Monday, charges that could further inflame anger in Pakistan.

NATO has described the incident as "tragic and unintended" and has promised a full investigation.

Unnamed Afghan officials have said thatAfghan commandos and U.S. special forces were conducting a missionon the Afghan side of the border and took incoming fire from the direction of the Pakistani posts. They responded with airstrikes.

Ties between Pakistan and the United States have sunk to new lows since the deadly attack, delivering a major setback to American hopes of enlisting Islamabad's help in negotiating an end to the 10-year-old Afghan war.

Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said the Pakistani troops at two border posts were the victims of unprovoked aggression. He said the attack lasted almost two hours and that commanders had contacted NATO counterparts while it was going on, asking that "they get this fire to cease, but somehow it continued."

The Pakistan army has previously said its soldiers retaliated "with all weapons available" to the attack.

Constant source of tension

The poorly defined, mountainous border has been a constant source of tension between Pakistan and the United States. NATO officials have complained that insurgents fire from across the frontier, often from positions close to Pakistani soldiers who have been accused of tolerating or supporting the militants. NATO and Afghan forces are not allowed to cross over into Pakistan in pursuit of militants.

Saturday's strikes added to popular anger in Pakistan against the U.S.-led coalition presence in Afghanistan. Many in the army, parliament, general population and media already believed that the U.S. and NATO are hostile to Pakistan and that the Afghan Taliban are not the enemy.

"Whoever is a friend of America is a traitor to the land," around 400 members of Jamaat-e-Dawa, an alleged front group for the militant Lashkar-e-Taiba organization, chanted in a demonstration in Karachi, the country's biggest city. There have several small rallies across the country since Saturday.

Militants have periodically attacked foreigners in Pakistan over the last 10 years.

On its website, the U.S. Embassy warned of possible retaliation against its Americans and said some U.S. government personnel outside Islamabad were being recalled to the capital as a precaution.

While the United States is widely disliked in Pakistan, the army has accepted billions of dollars in American aid over the last 10 years in return for its co-operation in fighting al-Qaida. It has been accused of fomenting anti-American sentiment in the country to extract better terms in what is essentially a transactional and deeply troubled relationship with Washington.

Saturday's deadly incident also serves to shift attention away from the dominant perception of the Pakistani army in the West over the last five yearsthat of an unreliable ally that supports militancy. That image was cemented after al-Qaida's chief Osama bin Laden was found to have been hiding in an army town close to the Pakistani capital when he was killed.

For Pakistan's weak and much criticized elected government, Saturday's airstrikes provide a rare opportunity to unite the country and a momentary relief from attack by rivals eyeing elections in 2013 or sooner.