Islamabad, October 07: US Ambassador to Pakistan Anne W. Patterson apologized to Pakistan on behalf of the American people on Wednesday for the Sept. 30 incident which resulted in the deaths of two Pakistani Frontier Scouts as gunmen torched more than 50 tankers carrying goods for NATO soldiers.
Forty containers and oil tankers were torched in Quetta in the morning while 15 more NATO containers were attacked by gunmen in Khairabad near Nowshera later on Wednesday.
Patterson said that a joint investigation of the incident had established that the US helicopters had mistaken the Pakistani Frontier Scouts for insurgents they had been pursuing. “We extend our deepest apology to Pakistan and the families of the Frontier Scouts who were killed and injured” said the ambassador. “Pakistan’s brave security forces are our allies in a war that threatens both Pakistan and the US.”
Pakistan blocked NATO supplies to Afghanistan through its Torkham border crossing after the incident on Sept. 30. On Wednesday, gunmen torched more than two dozen tankers carrying fuel to NATO troops and killed a driver, the sixth attack on convoys taking supplies to Afghanistan since the closure of the border crossing.
The trucks were attacked early Wednesday morning while on their way to the Chaman crossing, which is still open. An unidentified number of gunmen in two vehicles attacked the trucks as they sat in the parking lot of a roadside hotel on the outskirts of Quetta, the capital of Balochistan province. At least 25 trucks were destroyed by fire that spread quickly from vehicle to vehicle, senior police officer Hamid Shakil said.
Balochistan provincial police chief Malik Mohammed Iqbal later said some suspects from the area were being questioned but gave no further details.
Of the six attacks on convoys bringing supplies in from the port city of Karachi since the Torkham closure, four were on trucks heading to that crossing and two were on their way to Chaman.
The ambassador’s apology notwithstanding, a US missile later killed five people in Pakistan’s tribal northwest. A security official said two missiles hit a militant compound in Miranshah, the main town in tribal North Waziristan, a hide-out of foreign militants.
Smoke could be seen rising half a kilometer from the damaged building, which was cordoned off by militants, residents said. Security officials initially put the death toll at four militants but later said it had risen to five. One official said two people were wounded.
-Agencies