‘Ally’ Pakistan ambushed US, Afghan commanders in 2007

New York: In what could widen the gulf between the United States and Pakistan, American and Afghan officials have revealed that Pakistani troops had targeted them during an ambush in 2007.

The attack, which took place in Teri Mangal near the lawless Pakistan-Afghanistan border on May 14, 2007, killed an American major besides injuring three other US officials and an Afghan interpreter. US commandos had also responded to the Pakistani fire before getting away in their Hawk helicopter.

The American and Afghan officials, who revealed the details of the assault, described the ambush as a complex and calculated move by the Pakistani forces, The New York Times reported.

Officials pointed out that the attack was a revenge for Afghan, Pakistani deaths at American hands.

“I saw the American falling and taking positions and firing,” The New York Times quoted Brigadier General Muhammad Akram Same, the then Afghan Army commander in eastern Afghanistan, as saying.

“We were not fired on from one side, but from two, probably three sides,” he added.

Colonel Sher Ahmed Kuchai, the Afghan border guard commander, who also witnessed the ferocious assault by the Pakistani troops said: “It did not last more than 20 seconds, but this was a moment of life and death.”

The latest disclosure suggests that the Obama Administration was aware about Islamabad’s duplicity but even then it maintained a strange silence over it.

Last week, Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was undermining the efforts of the international forces in war ravaged Afghanistan.

Mullen also stressed that the ISI provided support to the militants who targeted the US Embassy in Kabul earlier this month.