Pakistan says NATO ignored its pleas during attack

The NATO airstrikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers went on for almost two hours and continued even after Pakistani commanders had pleaded with coalition forces to stop, the army claimed Monday in charges that could further inflame anger in Pakistan. NATO has described the incident as "tragic and unintended" and has promised a full investigation. Unnamed Afghan officials have said that a joint Afghan-NATO force on the Afghan side of the border received incoming fire from the direction of the Pakistani posts, and called in airstrikes. Ties between Pakistan and the United States were already deteriorating before the deadly attack and have sunk to new lows since, delivering a major setback to American hopes of enlisting Islamabad's help in negotiating an end to the 10-year-old Afghan war. Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said the Pakistani troops at two border posts were the victims of an unprovoked aggression. He said the attack lasted almost two hours and that commanders had contacted NATO counterparts while it was going on, asking "they get this fire to cease, but somehow it continued." The Pakistan army has previously said its soldiers retaliated "with all weapons available" to the attack. The poorly defined, mountainous border has been a constant source of tension between Pakistan and the United States. NATO officials have complained that insurgents fire from across the frontier, often from positions close to Pakistani soldiers who have been accused of tolerating or supporting the militants. NATO and Afghan forces are not allowed to cross over into Pakistan in pursuit of militants. Saturday's strikes have added to popular anger in Pakistan against the U.S.-led coalition presence in Afghanistan. Many in the army, parliament, general population and media already believed that the U.S. and NATO are hostile to Pakistan and that the Afghan Taliban are not the enemy. By claiming it was the victim of unprovoked aggression, the Pakistan army is strengthening this narrative. While the United States is widely disliked in Pakistan, the army has accepted billions in American aid over the last 10 years in return for its cooperation in fighting al-Qaida. It has been accused of fomenting anti-American sentiment in the country to extract better terms in what is essentially a transactional and deeply troubled relationship with Washington. Saturday's deadly incident also serves to shift attention away from the dominant perception of the Pakistani army in the West over the last five years — that of an unreliable ally that supports militancy. That image was cemented after al-Qaida's chief Osama bin Laden was found to have been hiding in an army town close to the Pakistani capital when he was killed. For Pakistan's weak and much criticized elected government, Saturday's airstrikes provide a rare opportunity to unite the country and a momentary relief from attack by rivals eyeing elections in 2013 or sooner. By contrast, deaths of soldiers and civilians in attacks by militants, some with alleged links to the country's spy agencies, are often greeted with official silence. Abbas dismissed Afghanistan's claims that the joint Afghan-NATO troops were fired upon first. "At this point, NATO and Afghanistan are trying to wriggle out of the situation by offering excuses," he said. "Where are their casualties?" Abbas said the two military posts, named "Volcano" and "Golden," were located on a ridge in Mohmand region around 300 yards (meters) from the border with Afghanistan. He said their exact location had been provided to NATO and that the area had recently been cleared of militants. Hours after the attack on Saturday, Pakistan closed its western border to trucks delivering supplies to NATO troops in Afghanistan, demanded that the U.S. abandon an air base inside Pakistan used to operate drone strikes, and said it will review its cooperation with the U.S. and NATO. However, a complete breakdown in the relationship between the United States and Pakistan is considered unlikely. Pakistan relies on billions of dollars in American aid, and the U.S. needs Pakistan to push Afghan insurgents to participate in peace talks. After the bin Laden raid, ties almost collapsed but slowly resumed, albeit at a lower level and with lower expectations on the American side. A year ago, a U.S. helicopter attack killed two Pakistani soldiers posted on the Afghan-Pakistani border, prompting the army to close one of the border crossings. A joint investigation by the two nations found that Pakistani troops had fired first at the U.S. helicopters. The investigation found that the shots were probably meant as warnings after the choppers passed into Pakistani airspace. The U.S. apologized, and the border was reopened.

NATO attack kills 24 Pakistan troops

NATO helicopters have attacked a border post, Pakistani security officials say, killing at least 24 soldiers and injuring more than a dozen.
Authorities suspended NATO supplies to landlocked Afghanistan in protest.
The pre-dawn attack occurred in Mohmand agency, one of the seven Pakistani tribal districts from where US officials say militants infiltrate into Afghanistan to target NATO-led forces.
A military spokesman said NATO helicopters had targeted the Salala border post manned by paramilitary troops.
An official at the paramilitary Frontier Corps headquarters in Peshawar, the capital of north-western Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, said initial reports showed 22 soldiers and two officers were killed and 15 troops were wounded.
"This is an attack on Pakistan's sovereignty and such attacks will not be further tolerated," said provincial governor Masood Kausar, who also heads the civilian government in seven tribal districts.
The Salala border post is on a hill along a route used by militants often to enter into Afghanistan, said an intelligence official who also spoke on condition of anonymity.
The airstrike triggered a wave of anger in the country where anti-American sentiments already run high.
Condemnation also came from opposition political parties.
Geo Television reported that Pakistan's acting ambassador in Washington, Iffat Gardezi, has registered a strong protest with the US State Department over the attack.
Jamil Khan, a senior security official in Khyber agency, said trucks carrying supplies for NATO in Afghanistan had been stopped from crossing the border.
"So far 50 trucks have been turned back," he said.
The main route for more than 50 per cent of supplies - from fuel to food and weapons - for NATO forces in Afghanistan runs through Khyber district.
NATO-led forces confirmed that a clash with Pakistani troops had occurred, but withheld comment pending investigation.
"We are aware that there has been an incident in the border region," Lt Commander Brian Badura, spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force, said.
"Right now we are gathering details and starting to investigate what happened."

What is File Extension TMF

File Extension TMF Description:

The TMF file extension has been described as WordPerfect Tagged Font Metric File for WordPerfect Office file format for Corel software applications. The file extension was designed particularly for the WordPerfect software as its default saving file format. The module TMF is used for text file to store information in file system.
The TMF file format is a tag font Metric file that works on WordPerfect software application for Microsoft Windows. The TMF file extension has been created for computer applications capable o generating, editing, formatting, composing, and possibly printing of text materials.
The TMF file extension is for storing document details. This file format is the signature file structure for all projects to be saved under the WordPerfect software. Software applications have the ability to format any kind of information that may require a file of a TMF extension to encode information under an associated application. Since the main implementing application of the TMF file extension is a word process, a common office application, usage of the said file format can come as a typical archiving file structure for word documents.
The file TMF has been designed to store up text file formats that can adapt the American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII) or UTF-8 (8-bit UCS/Unicode Transformation Format). A text file format is a code, which represents text in personal computers, communications equipment (e.g. Fax machine) and other devices that generates text documents.
One of the characteristics of a TMF file is its accessibility for program software to apply after the existing program has done. The TMF file extension is a computer file that can now be considered as the counterpart of hard copy documents used in preserving offices and library files. The TMF file extension has a file format content of text characters and integer values essential in creating text, image, and sound files. It depends on the program software which uses the TMF file extension to identify the meaning and inside layout information of a file and present it to a computer user with more vital information