A US air strike that killed 11 Pakistani soldiers in June was the result of an incomplete US military database that did not include the location of the soldiers' post on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, US officials said on Wednesday.
Defence officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said preliminary results of a joint US-Pakistani probe of the incident show that the military post's location just inside Pakistan was never entered into a US database designed to prevent attacks on friendly forces in the area. One official emphasised the investigation has not been formally completed and the findings could still be subject to change.
The results, which have not been released, have led to new disagreement between US and Pakistani officials about whether Pakistan ever provided the post's location to Americans, the officials said. An official at the Pakistan Embassy in Washington could not confirm the investigation's findings but said the incident underscored the need for greater intelligence and military co-operation along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
A US military spokesman declined to comment on preliminary findings, first reported on Wednesday by the New York Times. "The investigation is still ongoing," said Army Captain Christian Patterson of the US military's Combined Joint Task Force-101 at Bagram air field in Afghanistan. "It hasn't been completed." Officials said the inquiry showed that the Pakistani forces were in or near the border post and may have been intermingled with insurgents who had crossed back into Pakistan after firing on US troops in Afghanistan.