NATO airstrike kills 11 Pakistani soldiers.

This is the sort of action that just increases anti-American feeling in Pakistan where it is already very high. With Musharraf gone and a government in Pakistan that wants peace in the territories the U.S. is in a weak position. This sort of action just makes things that much worse for the U.S. The article speaks of a NATO airstrike but of course it is U.S. aircraft or drones that are involved no doubt. This is not the first time that NATO (US) has violated Pakistani sovereignty in air attacks.

From Times Online

Jenny Booth
Pakistan has condemned a "cowardly and unprovoked" Nato airstrike which killed 11 of its soldiers last night, threatening relations between the West and Islamabad.
The Pakistan army's paramilitary checkpost at Gora Prai in the Mohmand tribal agency was "destroyed by coalition forces in Afghanistan through aerial attack", killing 11 troops including an officer, said an unusually harshly worded statement attributed to an army spokesman.
"The spokesman condemned this completely unprovoked and cowardly act on the FC (Frontier Corps) post and regretted the loss of precious lives of our soldiers," it went on.
"He blamed the coalition forces for violent act and said that the incident had hit at the very basis of cooperation and sacrifice with which Pakistani soldiers are supporting the coalition in the war against terror."
Nato's command centre in eastern Afghanistan said it had begun an investigation into the incident, but that its operations against militants in the area had been previously co-ordinated with Pakistan.
It had called in an airstrike in the middle of a battle with militants when a drone "identified additional anti-Afghan forces joining the attack against the coalition forces", it said. The Pentagon has yet to comment.
The attack caused fury in Pakistan, where it was being seen as an example of US aggressive tactics in the region.
Yousuf Raza Gilani , the Pakistan Prime Minister, told Parliament: "We condemn it strongly. We will take a stand to preserve the sovereignty, dignity and respect of the country."
The Pakistan foreign office issued a statement condemning the"senseless use of air power" by the coalition and urging it to hand over the results of its investigation into the incident.
"The attack also tends to undermine the very basis of our cooperation with the coalition forces and warrants a serious rethink on their part of the consequences that could ensue from such rash acts," it said.
There are several conflicting versions of what happened some time after midnight last night when a missile crashed into the Gora Prai fort, killing 11 and wounding nine more.
According to senior Pakistan army sources, the incident began when its soldiers noticed that Nato forces and the Afghan National Army were constructing a military outpost on a mountaintop inside what Pakistan regards as its own territory.
"I am told the Afghan troops were actually building a kind of new outpost, were challenged by the Pakistan army and then the firing started," said Zahid Hussain, Times correspondent in Islamabad.
"Helicopters also appeared when the clashes started. According to Pakistan military sources, the soldiers died in an airstrike by a US drone on Pakistani soldiers."
But Nato command at Bagram said that the incident began when coalition troops came under rocket and small arms attack from militants while 200 metres inside the Afghan border.
"Shortly after the attack began, coalition forces informed the Pakistan Army that they were being engaged by anti-Afghan forces in a wooded area near the Gora Prai checkpoint," it said in a statement.
An unmanned drone spotted more hostile forces entering the attack, and the coalition troops returned fire with artillery, it went on. "(Then) an unmanned aerial system identified additional anti-Afghan forces joining the attack against the Coalition forces. While maintaining positive identification of the enemy, close-air support was then used by Coalition forces to gain fire superiority until the threat was eliminated. At no time did Coalition ground forces cross into Pakistan."
The nationality of the Western soldiers involved is unknown, but most of the foreign troops based in the rugged, mountainous region of eastern Afghanistan are American.
One senior Pakistan officer on the ground appeared to support the Nato version of events, saying: "The militants launched a cross-border attack into Afghanistan. At least 10 of our soldiers were killed in a counter-offensive by forces in Afghanistan."
A Pakistan Taleban spokesman said that its fighters had attacked US forces and claimed that they had shot down a helicopter. The Taleban spokesman added that they had seen the airstrike on the Pakistan checkpoint.
Damagh Khan Mohmand, a local tribesman who witnessed the fighting, said that it lasted for four hours, with Afghan and foreign forces trading fire with the Pakistani militants and with the Pakistan troops.
Two aircraft bombed several locations, hitting two FC paramilitary posts, said Mr Khan Mohmand. He added that he saw drones flying over the area.
Pakistan reportedly plans to raise the incident with the head of US forces in Afghanistan at the next meeting of the Tripartite Commission, where Pakistan, Afghanistan and the US discuss security issues. It will seek assurances that cross-border incursions will be halted.
The incident follows heightened tensions between Pakistan and the US. Last month a US drone killed a number of civilians when it attacked a village inside Pakistan. This latest attack has had a greater impact, however, as Pakistani troops were killed.
Meanwhile, Afghanistan and NATO have been expressing increasing concern about Pakistani efforts to negotiate peace pacts to end militant violence on its side of the border.
The new Pakistani government has been negotiating with Pashtun tribal elders to persuade militants in their areas to give up a campaign of violence in Pakistan in which hundreds of people have been killed over the past year.
But Afghanistan and its Western allies say peace pacts in northwest Pakistan’s border regions enable militants to step up cross-border attacks from Pakistani sanctuaries.