Friendly fire kills Pakistani soldiers in border region | World news | guardian.co.uk

 

• Tuesday 29 March 2011 07.37 BST

• Article history

Thirteen members of the Pakistani frontier corps, including a colonel, were killed in an apparent friendly fire incident in a north-west region home to al-Qaida and Taliban-linked militants, a top military commander has said.

The deaths occurred late on Monday during an anti-militant operation by the paramilitary frontier corps in Khyber, a Pashtun tribal region near the Afghan border.

Lieutenant-General Asif Yasin Malik, the senior officer in the north-west, said a mortar fired by the soldiers fell on their position, causing the deaths.

"The soldiers were coming under machine gun fire and they were retaliating with mortar fire. But a mortar bomb missed the target and mistakenly hit their own position," he told reporters after the funerals of the soldiers in the city of Peshawar.

He said one colonel was among the dead.

Some residents, however, said a military vehicle hit a roadside bomb planted by militants.

Khyber is one of the seven semi-autonomous tribal regions bordering Afghanistan and is considered a hub for militants. It also marks one of the main supply routes for the US-led foreign forces operating in Afghanistan. Militants frequently attack Nato supply vehicles in the region.

In recent weeks, the security forces have stepped up attacks on militants after they blew up several schools and bridges in an attempt to hinder the flow of supplies to Nato forces.