US Soldiers Suspect Pakistan Fired on Them

US soldiers in Paktika Province, Afghanistan, have a sneaking suspicion that the Pakistani military opened fire on them last month in an attempt to protect insurgents, they tell the Washington Post. The soldiers were patrolling near a Pakistani border post on October 25 when they came under a hail of fire. They sent up a warning flare identifying themselves, but the fire continued. US aircraft spotted insurgents nearby, and the initial report concluded that “it is likely PAKMIL were facilitating” their maneuvers.

When the fighting started, officers at a nearby forward operating base asked their Pakistani liaison there to call Pakistan's Frontier Corps, but he was “hemming and hawing,” an officer said. When he finally called the post, there was no answer. US Special Ops troops later scouted the base and found it apparently abandoned, so it’s possible insurgents used it that day. But many soldiers still harbor doubts about Pakistan's allegiance. “There’s a lot of smoke. Is there fire?” one senior officer said. “It’s a very strong circumstantial argument at this point.” (More Pakistan stories.)