NATO airstrikes continued even after Pakistani commanders requested to cease fire: Major General Athar Abbas, DG ISPR

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (Nov. 28) – According to latest claims by official sources of Pakistan army; the NATO air-strikes that killed 24 Pakistani troops continued for almost two hours, even after Pakistani army commanders had requested NATO forces to stop.

Protests erupted in several Pakistani cities Sunday after 24 soldiers killed in NATO air strikes on Saturday.

DG ISPR (Inter Services Public Relation), Major General Athar Abbas, said the Pakistani soldiers at two border posts were the victims of an unprovoked aggression. He said the attack lasted almost two hours and that commanders had contacted NATO counterparts while it was going on, asking “they get this fire to cease, but somehow it continued.”

Ties between Pakistan and the United States were already worsening before the deadly attack and the ISPR statement on Monday has further ignited the anti-America sentiments in masses throughout Pakistan.

NATO has described the Saturday’s incident as “tragic and unintended” and has promised a thorough probe. On the other hand, undisclosed Afghan officials have claimed that a joint Afghan-NATO force on the Afghan side of the border received incoming fire from the direction of the Pakistani posts, and called in air-strikes.

NATO’s air-strikes on Saturday have taken the worsening US-Pakistan, once the biggest allies in the ‘war against terror’, ties to the lowest since last 10 years and certainly added to popular anger in Pakistan against the US-led coalition presence in Afghanistan. Many in the army, parliament, general public and media already believed that the US and NATO are aggressive to Pakistan and that the Afghan Talibans are not the enemy.

Pakistan retaliated the NATO air-strikes by blocking supply routes for US-led troops in Afghanistan and ordering U.S. forces to leave Shamsi air base.