U.S.-led soldiers fire into Pakistan

U.S.-led soldiers fire into Pakistan

The attack from inside Afghanistan was aimed at Taliban militants.

TANGRAI, Pakistan (AP) — U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan fired across the border into Pakistan in a strike targeting Taliban militants, and the Pakistani army said Thursday that civilians were killed.

The attack illustrates Washington’s concern the Taliban and al-Qaida are using Pakistan’s lawless frontier as a base for attacks in Afghanistan.

But anger at civilian deaths could lead to a review by the incoming Pakistani government of the country’s counterterrorism strategy and its U.S.-backed policy of using military force to root out militants.

A spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan said troops used “precision-guided munitions” to strike a compound about a mile inside Pakistan on Wednesday.

Maj. Chris Belcher said the troops were responding to an “imminent threat” and that the coalition informed Pakistani authorities after the strike.

“We received reliable intelligence indicating senior Haqqani network members were in the compound at the time of the strike,” Belcher said Thursday in Kabul.

Siraj Haqqani is a prominent Afghan militant. On Wednesday, a coalition statement accused him of organizing a suicide attack that killed two NATO soldiers at an Afghan government office March 3. It said Haqqani “has become the most dangerous Taliban leader in Afghanistan.”

In Tangrai, a village of about 40 houses surrounded by fields and mountains, residents led an Associated Press reporter to the rubble of the house hit in the attack. Only one of its four walls was standing amid a tangle of mud bricks, bedding and cooking pots.

“We are innocent, we have nothing to do with such things,” said Noor Khan, a greengrocer who said the house was his family home.

He said six of his relatives — four women and two boys — died in the attack.

“We are poor people just trying to earn a living,” he said.

The Pakistani army said four civilians — two women and two children — died. There was no way to resolve the discrepancy between the numbers.

Pakistan has deployed approximately 90,000 troops to hunt down militants in its border regions. President Pervez Musharraf has sought to convince Pakistanis that they are fighting to protect their own country, not just for America’s sake.

But with violence escalating in Afghanistan and Pakistan, many here hope the anti-Musharraf parties who triumphed in parliamentary elections last month will scale back military activities and seek dialogue with militant groups, whose influence has been growing.