Pakistanis cleared airstrike

Pakistani officials cleared the NATO airstrike the killed 24 Pakistani soldiers Saturday, U.S. officials told The Wall Street Journal.The officials were unaware Pakistani soldiers were in the Mohmand tribal area near the border with Afghanistan at the time of the strike, the newspaper said. The incident, being investigated by NATO, has drawn much Pakistani outrage and further aggravated already strained U.S.-Pakistani relations.Friday's Journal report, quoting U.S. officials who had been briefed on a preliminary investigation of the airstrike, said Pakistani officials at a border coordination center were not aware their own soldiers were in the area when they gave the go-ahead to the airstrike.The report said an assault force led by Afghan security forces, which included U.S. commandos, had been hunting Taliban militants when they came under fire from an encampment along the border. The assault force thought the fire was coming from the militants, but the U.S. officials told the Journal the assailants turned out to be Pakistani military personnel who had established a temporary campsite.Initial U.S. accounts from the field said the commandos, seeking an airstrike, contacted a joint border-control center to find out whether Pakistani forces were in the area, a U.S. official told the Journal. The official said the assault force had not given advance notice to the center about its operation against Taliban insurgents.When contacted, the Pakistani officials at the center advised there were no Pakistani military forces in the area, thus allowing the airstrike to proceed, the U.S. officials said.The report said officials in Islamabad couldn't be reached for comment on the U.S. allegations, although Pakistan has repeatedly denied its forces fired on the Americans and claimed the airstrike was unprovoked.U.S. officials acknowledged there were errors by both sides in the incident, adding the Pakistani deaths were a terrible accident."There were lots of mistakes made," the official said. "There was not good situational awareness to who was where and who was doing what."U.S. officials speaking to the Journal said the account about the airstrike was based largely on interviews with the commando team and could change when more information is received.A formal report on the airstrike by U.S. military investigators is due by Dec. 23.Pakistan, protesting the airstrike, has decided against attending next week's international conference on Afghanistan in Bonn, Germany. The government had closed its supply routes for the coalition forces in Afghanistan.