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Pakistan

US military 'blunder' killed Pak troops, claims UK paper

Dunya News

US officers gave wrong coordinates to Pakistani counterparts to get clearance for Nato strike.

But the air strike as a result of the wrong information killed 24 Pakistani troops last weekend, UKs The Telegraph reported.The report said: A senior Pakistani military officer told The Sunday Telegraph that a border co-ordination unit - established to avoid exactly this sort of tragedy - was given incorrect details of a suspected Taliban position.The strike had begun before we realised the target was a border post, he said. The Americans say we gave them clearance but they gave us the wrong information.The co-ordinates had been checked with a Pakistani officer to ensure there were no friendly troops in the area, the pilots believed, and the Apache attack helicopters and lone AC-130 gunship had been given the go-ahead to unload their deadly payload on the mountainside.But as dawn arrived it became clear that a terrible mistake had been made. Twenty-four Pakistani soldiers lay dead, their border posts were a smoking ruin and a crucial alliance had been poisoned.However, the paper didn’t say whether it was a deliberate misinformation on the part of the US military are less-trained soldiers. In all probability, the US military gave wrong information to avoid the Pakistan Air Force scrambling its jets in the air.