Pakistan orders troops to return fire if attacked on Afghan border

By Saeed Shah
McClatchy Newspapers

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan's top military commander has issued orders to the country's troops to return fire should they come under attack again from U.S.-led coalition forces in a move likely to increase tensions after last week's American-led raid on two border outposts that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.

Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, Pakistan’s army chief, issued the order in a letter to his troops that set out the rules of engagement against any “aggressor.”

The new orders came as Pakistan and U.S. officials continue to trade conflicting accounts of what happened in the incident, which U.S. officials say came after a joint U.S.-Afghan unit took fire from the Pakistan side of the border but which Pakistani officials say was unprovoked. No American or Afghan casualties were reported in the incident, which is now believed to have occurred shortly before midnight last Saturday.

Kayani's order, issued Thursday, could lead to a skirmish between Pakistani and coalition forces, supposedly allies, if there were another incident of “friendly fire” at the border. It also turns the deployment of over 100,000 Pakistan troops along its western border from a force meant to stop the Taliban to border protection duty.

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