ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The U.S.-led military coalition in Afghanistan released video footage Thursday that apparently shows militants firing on Afghan troops from a mountain ridge near the country’s northeast border with Pakistan, prompting a deadly skirmish that Pakistan has blamed for the deaths of 11 of its soldiers.
A Taliban spokesman said 10 others also died in the military operation, which occurred Tuesday evening just a few hundred feet inside Pakistan’s troubled Mohmand tribal area and has threatened to further destabilize the increasingly fragile alliance between the United States and Pakistan.
The footage of the incident, which was shot from above by an unmanned aerial vehicle, was issued as Pakistani government officials unleashed a torrent of criticism about the U.S.military operation along Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan.
The video shows about six or seven men firing on coalition troops from a mountainous area overlooking a valley in the eastern Afghan province of Kunar, roughly 200 yards from the Pakistani border. The video then shows bombs being dropped on what U.S. military officials have said were “anti-Afghan militants” in the area.
Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, chief spokesman for the Pakistan army, said Thursday that the video and other information about the attack will be weighed before any further action is taken by the Pakistani military.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, meanwhile, said through a spokesman Thursday that he had discussed the operation with his American counterpart, Ambassador Anne W. Patterson, Wednesday evening, and lodged a formal protest.
In the immediate aftermath of the strike, U.S. officials in Washington and Islamabad appeared unable to agree on how to respond. In Washington, Defense Department officials said the attack was “legitimate” and appeared to dodge reference to Pakistani military casualties.
National security adviser Stephen J. Hadley, speaking to reporters in Rome, said the United States has “not been able to corroborate” the deaths of Pakistani soldiers on the Afghan border.
“It’s still not exactly clear what happened,” Hadley said.
