Thousands protest Afghan-Pakistani clashes (Roundup)

May 16, 2007, 12:59 GMT

Kabul/Islamabad - An angry crowd of up to 1,000 people gathered at the Pakistani embassy in Kabul on Wednesday to protest weekend border clashes between Afghan and Pakistani troops in which six Afghan border security agents and seven civilians were killed.

Many of the demonstrators had travelled to the Afghan capital from Paktia, the eastern border province where the clashes took place.

Participants chanted slogans such as 'Death to Pakistan, Death to (Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf,' but there were no reports of any violence.

Similar demonstrations held on Tuesday in Paktia and the neighbouring Paktika provinces had seen protestors burn the Pakistani flag and demand that Islamabad pay the price for civilian casualties.

Saturday's clashes erupted when Pakistani soldiers entered Afghan territory, prompting Afghan guards to attack them with small-arms fire. The ensuing fighting, which marked the bloodiest clashes between troops of both countries in recent decades, lasted over 28 hours, Defence Ministry spokesman General Zahir Azimi said.

Also Wednesday, it emerged that a US soldier shot dead earlier in the week was killed by a Pakistani paramilitary officer rather than by militants as the Pakistani authorities had claimed.

The US serviceman died Monday in the north-western town of Teri Mangal as military officials from Pakistan, Afghanistan and the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) were fired upon after a trilateral meeting.

An ISAF statement said that following the meeting, an individual reported to be wearing a Pakistan Frontier Corps uniform, 'in a heinous and despicable act, fired as an assassin, into the group that had come with peaceful aims.'

The ISAF 'expects a full investigation of this incident by the Pakistani military', the statement said.

Administration officials in the Kurram Agency, where Teri Mangal is located, told Pakistan's Daily Times that the gunmen was a Pakistani trooper who was deployed for security.

'He shouted Allah-u-Akbar (God is great) and opened fire as he saw Americans,' an official told the newspaper on condition of anonymity. He was then shot dead in an exchange of fire with US forces.

The man came from the Bhittani tribe that inhabits areas flanking Pakistan's South Waziristan region, which has a long record of militancy, the official said.

The Bhittani are regarded as one of the most conservative and fiercest of the tribes in the region.

However, Pakistani military officials insist the casualties followed an attack by insurgents on the group's convoy as it left for the Afghan border.

In a separate development on Wednesday, US-led coalition forces said one of their servicemen was killed in a Taliban ambush in southern Afghanistan, again near the Pakistani border.

The attack took place on Monday in the Chinah area, around 40 kilometres south-west of Qalat, the capital of Zabul province, when a group of suspected Taliban attacked a joint Afghan-Coalition convoy.

The combined forces returned fire and forced the militants to retreat, the statement said, adding, 'one Coalition service-member was wounded during the engagement and medically evacuated to a nearby treatment facility, where he later died.'