ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — American forces conducted a raid inside Pakistan on Wednesday, a senior U.S. military official said, in the first known foreign ground assault against a suspected Taliban haven. Pakistan’s government condemned the action, saying it killed at least 15 people.
The American official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of cross-border operations, said the raid occurred about a mile inside Pakistan. The Washington-based official didn’t provide details on casualties.
Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry protested the attack, and an army spokesman warned that the apparent escalation from recent missile strikes on militant targets along the Afghan border would further anger Pakistanis and undercut cooperation in the war against terrorist groups.
The boldness of the thrust fed speculation about the intended target. But it was unclear whether any extremist leader was killed or captured in the operation, which occurred in one of the militant strongholds dotting a frontier region considered a likely hiding place for Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda’s No. 2 leader, Ayman al-Zawahri.
American commanders have been complaining publicly that Pakistan puts too little pressure on militants who are blamed for mounting violence in Afghanistan, stirring speculation that U.S. forces might lash out across the frontier.
In other signs of Pakistan’s precarious stability three days before legislators elect a successor to Pervez Musharraf as president, snipers shot at the prime minister’s limousine near Islamabad and government troops killed two dozen militants in another area of the restive northwest.
The Foreign Ministry called the U.S. strike “a gross violation of Pakistan’s territory” and said it could “undermine the very basis of cooperation and may fuel the fire of hatred and violence that we are trying to extinguish.”Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said Wednesday’s attack occurred in a village a little over a mile inside Pakistan.
Citing witness and intelligence reports, he said troops flew in on at least one big CH-47 Chinook transport helicopter, blasted their way into several houses and gunned down men they found there.
He said there was no evidence that any of those killed were insurgents or that the raiders abducted any militant leader, but he acknowledged Pakistan’s military had no firsthand account.
There were differing reports on how many people were killed. The provincial governor claimed 20 civilians, including women and children, died. Army and intelligence officials, as well as residents, said 15 people were killed.
Area resident Habib Khan Wazir said he heard helicopters, then an exchange of gunfire.
“Later, I saw 15 bodies inside and outside two homes. They had been shot in the head,” Wazir said by phone. He said all the dead were civilians.
