NATO ‘obliterated’ Pakistani soldiers in 2011: US ex-envoy to Islamabad

The former US ambassador to Pakistan says the ‘obliteration’ of Pakistani soldiers in US-led airstrikes in Pakistan in November 2011 cost Washington ‘billions of dollars.’

Islamabad closed the border crossings used for transferring NATO supplies to Afghanistan in November 2011 after 24 Pakistani soldiers were killed in US-led airstrikes on two checkpoints on the Afghan border. Pakistan repeatedly asked the US to apologize for the attack.

The routes were reopened on July 3, 2012 after then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton apologized to Pakistan in a statement over the killing of the soldiers.

“The fact that we were unable to say that we were sorry until July cost our country literally billions of dollars,” Cameron Munter said on Wednesday.

“But worse than that, it showed a kind of callousness that makes it so difficult simply to begin to talk about those things…,” the former US envoy stated, adding that Washington displayed a lack of generosity over the deaths of the troops.

Munter further said that US-led forces “obliterated” the Pakistani soldiers by firing from an AC-130 that is a powerful gunship.

The ambassador added that the US failed to express its regret for the incident “when there is nothing left of the bodies of 24” Pakistani troops.