Islamabad, December 24: The Obama Administration on Wednesday questioned the validity of media reports that the US has conducted multiple clandestine raids into Pakistan’s tribal areas as part of a secret war in the border region.
“I would question the validity of those reports,” P J Crowley, Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs said at a news conference when asked about the report in this regard in a British newspaper.
Crowley, however, refrained from giving any details.
‘The Guardian’ on Wednesday quoted an unnamed former NATO officer as saying that the incursions occurred between 2003 and 2008 and involved helicopter-borne elite soldiers stealing across the border at night, and were never declared to the Pakistani government.
“The Pakistanis were kept entirely in the dark about it. It was one of those things we wouldn’t confirm officially with them,” the report quoted the officer as saying and added that he had detailed knowledge of the operations.
After the only publicly acknowledged Special Forces raid in September 2008, Pakistan’s foreign office condemned it as “a grave provocation” while the military threatened retaliatory action, the report said.
—Agencies