NATO says it fired at insurgents in Pakistan

By FISNIK ABRASHI, Associated Press Writer
2 hrs 48 mins ago
KABUL, Afghanistan – NATO troops in eastern Afghanistan fired 20 artillery rounds at insurgents inside Pakistan in an attack the alliance said was coordinated with the government in Islamabad.
Meanwhile, clashes in both nations killed at least 25 people, officials said Tuesday, including seven left dead after Taliban militants elsewhere in Pakistan's northwest attacked pro-government tribal elders.
Pakistan and foreign forces in Afghanistan have stressed the need for coordination in battling al-Qaida and Taliban militants that nest on both sides of the frontier. Pakistani coordination with foreign troops in the region, while not unusual, is nonetheless a sensitive subject because of strong local opposition to the presence of Western troops.
The military alliance said it fired the rounds Sunday after insurgents attacked its troops in Afghanistan's eastern Paktika province with rockets from across the border.
"The artillery fire caused a secondary explosion at the rocket launch site, which indicates additional munitions in the location," the NATO statement said.
In an official statement Tuesday, Pakistan's military said only that a NATO post was attacked by militants Sunday and that NATO troops "engaged the fleeing militants on (the) Afghan side of the border and informed (a) Pakistani post on the Pak-Afghan border."
Asked to confirm if any activity occurred inside Pakistan, a military spokesman refused to go beyond the issued statement.
Officials say relations between NATO-led troops in Afghanistan and Pakistan's military are improving. However, Pakistan has been complaining about unilateral missile strikes conducted by U.S. forces into its tribal areas. Pakistani officials say the American airstrikes violate their country's sovereignty.
In other violence, Taliban militants attacked Pakistani tribal leaders near the Afghan border, triggering a gunbattle and a blast that killed seven people, an official said Tuesday.
The gunbattle occurred late Monday in Bajur, a lawless tribal region in Pakistan where troops and government-backed tribal militias have been battling militants since August.
The hourslong gunbattle killed a commander of the Taliban fighters as well as two guards of the elders' compound, said Israr Khan, a government representative. Four elders also died when an explosion hit the compound, he said. It was unclear what caused the blast.
The Pakistani military also is engaged in an offensive against militants in the Swat Valley, elsewhere in the country's northwest.
Security forces in the Kabal area of the restive valley killed seven militants Tuesday, according to the army media center. In another incident in the valley's Kanju area, insurgents ambushed an army convoy, killing a soldier, the statement said.
In Afghanistan, insurgents in western Farah province ambushed an Afghan army supply convoy, killing five troops and wounding five others, said Gen. Fazludin Sayar, the army commander for the western region.
Sayar said five insurgents also died in the clash in Farah's Bala Buluk region on Monday.
Insurgent attacks in Afghanistan are up 30 percent from 2007, military officials say.
A tally of official figures provided to The Associated Press show that more than 5,400 people have died in insurgency-related violence this year. Most of the casualties are suspected militants.
___
Associated Press Writer Asif Shahzad contributed to this report from Islamabad, Pakistan.