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    January 23, 2012

Pakistan Rejects US Findings on Deadly Border Attack

   VOA News
   People offer funeral prayers of Saturday's NATO attack victims in
   Peshawar, Pakistan, November 27, 2011.
   Photo: AP
   People offer funeral prayers of Saturday's NATO attack victims in
   Peshawar, Pakistan. (File Photo - November 27, 2011)

   Pakistan's military has formally rejected the findings of a U.S.
   inquiry into last month's NATO attack that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers
   along the Afghan border.
   The military said Monday that it does not agree with several portions
   of the investigation report, calling them "factually not correct."
   U.S. defense officials blamed inadequate coordination by both Pakistani
   and U.S.-led forces for the November 26 attack. The U.S. military probe
   also found that U.S. forces acted in self-defense and with appropriate
   force after being fired upon.
   Pakistan's military on Monday dismissed the U.S. findings and said that
   holding Pakistan partially responsible for the incident on Pakistan is
   "unjustified and unacceptable."
   Pakistan responded to the NATO attack by shutting down the two main
   overland routes the coalition uses to send nonlethal supplies to
   Afghanistan.
   The border attack brought U.S.-Pakistan relations to a new low point,
   with ties already strained over the covert U.S. raid that killed Osama
   bin Laden last year and a number of U.S. drone strikes targeting
   militants in Pakistan's northwest.
   In the latest strike, Pakistani officials say missiles fired by a U.S.
   drone hit a vehicle and a house Monday in North Waziristan tribal
   agency's Degan village, near the Afghan border. Authorities say four
   militants from Turkmenistan were killed in the attack.
   Drone strikes resumed earlier this month after a drop-off in such
   attacks following the deadly November 26 NATO airstrike.
   Pakistan has condemned drone strikes as a violation of the country's
   sovereignty, but they are believed to be carried out with the help of
   Pakistani intelligence.
   U.S. officials have never publicly acknowledged the missile strikes
   against militants in Pakistan's tribal areas, but have anonymously
   confirmed such attacks to various news outlets.

   Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters.