Report faults NATO delays on Pakistan strike

A North Atlantic Treaty Organisation officer in Afghanistan took about 45 minutes to notify a senior allied commander about Pakistan's calls that its outposts were under attack, according to new details of the probe into last month's air strike that killed 26 Pakistani soldiers.

According to an unclassified version of the United States military's Central Command investigation report, a NATO operations officer in Afghanistan had not notified a senior allied commander about Pakistan's calls that its outposts were under attack till 45 minutes after the attack began.

The investigation revealed that at 12:35 am on November 26, a NATO liaison officer in Pakistan notified the night director in an allied operations center in Afghanistan that Pakistan said its troops were under attack, presumably from NATO aircraft, the New York Times reported.

The liaison officer did not alert a top general in Afghanistan, Major General James Laster, until 1:20 am, after the firefight had ended.

Once alerted, the commander immediately ordered a halt to American attacks on the Pakistani border posts. By then, communications between the two militaries had sorted  out a chain of errors and the shooting had stopped, the paper said.

"The delay, by at least one officer and possibly a second, raises questions about whether a faster response could have spared the lives of some Pakistani soldiers," it said.

Another revelation made in the probe is that an American AC-130 gunship had flown two miles into Pakistani airspace to return fire on the Pakistani troops who had attacked a joint American-Afghan ground patrol across the border in Afghanistan, the NYT reported.

The report, investigating the lapses and communication breakdown between US and Pakistani forces on November 26, also said officials "did not respond correctly, quickly enough or with the sense of urgency or initiative required given the gravity of the situation and the well known sensitivity surrounding the Afghan-Pakistan border region."

The NATO attack has plunged US-Pakistan ties to new lows, prompting Pakistan to "re-evaluate" the entire relationship with the US, a US official had said.

The 30-page report also found that competing NATO and American rules of engagement related to operations along the border "lacked clarity and precision, and were not followed."

Before the mission began, General Laster had ordered that the ground patrol's helicopter landing zone be moved farther away from the Pakistani border.