The US commander in Afghanistan discussed border co-ordination with Pakistan's army chief on Wednesday as the Taliban released a video showing the remains of 17 beheaded Pakistani soldiers. General John Allen, who commands 130,000 Nato troops fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan, flew into Chaklala air base and went straight into the talks with General Ashraf Kayani at his Rawalpindi headquarters, before jetting out of the country, officials said.
There was no immediate comment from Nato's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), but a Pakistani official said Kayani demanded greater efforts from the Americans on stopping cross-border incursions. "It was a routine meeting to discuss the border co-ordination," a senior Pakistani military official told AFP. "We also raised the issue of cross-border attacks on the Pakistan military from Afghanistan. We demanded that ISAF take action against the militant sanctuaries in Afghanistan and eliminate the militant groups involved in cross-border attacks inside Pakistan," he added.
Pakistan said around 100 Afghan-based militants crossed the border into the north-western district of Upper Dir on Sunday. Six soldiers were killed and 11 went missing. Pakistani officials said Tuesday that seven of them were beheaded. On Wednesday, a senior security official in the north-west admitted that all 17 had in fact been beheaded after the Pakistani Taliban released a video showing the slaughtered heads.
Pakistan's main umbrella Taliban faction claimed responsibility for the attack. Intelligence officials said the perpetrators were loyalists of Maulana Fazlullah, a Pakistani cleric who led a two-year Taliban insurgency in the north-western Swat valley before fleeing into Afghanistan to escape an army offensive in 2009.
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