US, Pakistan Differ on Al Qaeda

Islamabad

Weeks after US missiles killed eleven Pakistani soldiers on the Afghan border, the air is still thick with recrimination. The United States insists its men were ambushed by the Taliban inside Afghanistan and fired back in "self-defense." Pakistan says that even though the army's border positions were known, the Americans fired in a "cowardly and unprovoked...act of aggression."

The acrimony deepened with comments by Gen. Dan McNeil, retiring commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan. On June 15 he questioned the loyalty of the Frontier Corps, the paramilitary force that guards the border. The dead FC soldiers "were pretty much tribals themselves," he said, referring to the fact that they came from the same Pashtun kith as the Taliban. Does that mean they were legitimate targets? They may become so. The border skirmish was bound to happen. It was a result of two colliding views over how to tackle the Taliban and its Al Qaeda cohort ensconced in Pakistan's lethal borderlands.

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