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A suicide car bomber blew himself up as a NATO convoy passed his vehicle on the outskirts of the capital on Friday, killing one civilian and wounding two troops, officials said.

NATO said one Afghan civilian was killed in the blast near the entrance to a coalition base south of Kabul. The Afghan Defense Ministry said an Afghan soldier and a NATO service member were wounded in the explosion.

The Hizb-i-Islami group that operates under the leadership of warlord and former Afghan Prime Minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar claimed responsibility for the attack.

“The bombing has been carried out by one of our men,” Harun Zarghun, a spokesman for Hizb-i-Islami, told The Associated Press. “The attack is part of our campaign to oust American forces from Afghanistan.”

The attack slightly damaged a Humvee but destroyed the vehicle driven used by the suicide bomber, AP Television News footage showed.

Although suicide bomb attacks are becoming commonplace in southern and eastern parts of Afghanistan, where NATO is fighting the Taliban, increased security has made them less frequent in the capital.

In eastern Afghanistan, a NATO service member was killed in an insurgent attack, the coalition said. Neither the nationality of the service member nor any other details were released. So far this year, 626 U.S. and international troops have died in Afghanistan, according to a count by The Associated Press.

Also on Friday, the coalition killed at least seven insurgents in an airstrike on a Taliban command center in the Naw Zad district of Helmand province in the south. Afghan and NATO troops continue to battle a resilient insurgency in Helmand while Afghan officials work to improve governance and rush development into the region.

Intelligence information and tips from local citizens led the coalition to the location, which insurgents use as a meeting site. In the past few days, numerous armed insurgents had been seen coming and going from the location, the coalition said.

NATO said that on Thursday at least 15 militants were killed by in a fierce round of fighting in Helmand province and 15 more were detained during three overnight operations targeting Taliban leaders across Afghanistan.

The heavy fighting erupted in Sangin district after a member of a joint Afghan and coalition patrol was struck by a homemade bomb, the coalition said. Insurgents continued to attack as a coalition helicopter evacuated casualties. The coalition force called in air support and the insurgents were killed by missiles, a 30mm cannon and artillery fire.

Also in Helmand, a joint force captured several suspected insurgents in Musa Qala district Thursday while going after a senior Taliban leader known for trafficking in weapons and explosives.

In neighboring Kandahar province, Afghan and coalition forces detained other suspected insurgents in Panjawi district while pursuing a member of the Taliban suspected of transporting bomb parts and other weapons between Pakistan and Kandahar, the largest city in the south.

In the third operation, which was conducted in Khost province in the east, security forces also detained insurgents while looking for a member of the al-Qaida-linked Haqqani network who supplies weapons, vehicles and materials to militant fighters in the area.

In total, 15 suspects were apprehended in the overnight operations, NATO said.

The coalition also reported that two Taliban bomb makers were captured Thursday in an area of Kandahar province near the Pakistan border where NATO has been trying to disrupt insurgent supply routes. Through intelligence tips, the coalition tracked the two to a compound in Spin Boldak where they were apprehended. Numerous bomb components, including detonation switches, were confiscated at the site.

Associated Press writer Asif Shahzad contributed to this report from Islamabad, Pakistan.

By kansascity.com

The destroyed remains of a vehicle used by a suicide bomber is seen as a U.S. military vehicle is being towed away after being hit by a suicide car bomber on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan, Friday, Nov. 12, 2010.

Experts attribute calm on northern border to Hezbollah fear of devastating response to attack on Israel that could undermine the group’s standing in Lebanon.

Hamas asked Hezbollah to fire rockets on northern Israel during Operation Cast Lead, but the Lebanese militant group refused, Maj. Gen. (res. ) Dan Harel said on Tuesday.

Harel was deputy chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces during the 2008-2009 military offensive in Gaza.

Harel, who spent most of his career in the Artillery Corps, made the comments at the first international Conference on Fire and Combined Arms in an Urban Terrain, held at the Artillery Association headquarters in Zichron Yaakov.

Harel said the massive firepower the IDF employed against Hamas infrastructure and positions led Hamas to entirely change its “battle rationale” during Cast Lead.

“It simply avoided conflict, and IDF forces found it very difficult to locate and fight the enemy because of the force of firepower employed,” Harel said.

He said the IDF learned then that “Hamas had asked Hezbollah twice to fire rockets at the northern border, but Hezbollah decided to stay out of it.”

Hezbollah has not fired rockets at Israel since the end of the 2006 Second Lebanon War. IDF experts attribute the relative calm on the country’s northern border to Hezbollah’s fear of a devastating response to any attack on Israel that could undermine the group’s standing in Lebanon.

Harel said those who plan the military operations are more attuned than ever to the effects of warfare on civilian populations, and that Cast Lead was the first time in his military career in which operational planning included extended consideration of “legality and legitimacy.”

That planning, which involved legal experts, gave greater priority than ever before to avoiding inflicting damage upon civilian populations, he said, even though Israel was widely criticized for harming civilians during the operation.

Outgoing IDF chief Gabi Ashkenazi said the first wave of IDF aerial attacks, which began December 27, 2008, destroyed more than 60 percent of Hamas’ rocket launch sites. He attributed the IDF’s heightened operational ability to an “inter-war readiness” based on precise information about Hamas infrastructure.

Still, he said, sound intelligence and long-range strikes will not be enough to win future wars, and the army will have to enhance its ability to “integrate firepower methods with ground maneuvers.”

By haaretz.com

A cloud of smoke billows over Gaza after an Israel Defense Forces strike during the 2009 war.

Security experts say that parcel bombings sent to embassies across Athens on Monday and Tuesday have all the hallmarks of anarchist groups looking to make a ’symbolic gesture.’

Athens, Greece

A two-day barrage of parcel bombings targeting embassies in Athens bears the hallmarks of anarchist groups in Greece that may have used the attacks to draw international support for their revolutionary cause.

Police have declined to say officially whom they suspect in the attacks, other than it is likely a local anarchist group unconnected to mail bombs from Yemen attributed to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. One of the suspects taken into custody Monday has been identified as a member of the Conspiracy of the Cells (or nuclei) of Fire, referred to as SPF, which is among a number of anarchist groups that have surfaced in the past several years.

“SPF has a track record of international actions,” says Brady Kiesling, a former American diplomat and expert on Greek terrorism. “It is definitely an anarchist group looking for a symbolic gesture.”

Security experts say they have recently noticed an uptick in Internet chatter among anarchist groups looking to make a statement about the economic crisis in Greece and Europe, and to strike out against countries where anarchists are currently imprisoned. They say that could explain the selection of embassies that were targeted since Monday.

“These letter bombs were not strong enough to kill anyone,” says Mary Bossis, a terrorism expert at the University of Piraeus. “But they were strong enough to send a message around the world.”

There were no injuries in the explosions at the Swiss and Russian embassies on Tuesday, and police were able to intercept and detonate parcel bombs addressed to the Bulgarian, Chilean, and German embassies.

Today’s bombs followed botched attempts to send explosive parcels to the office of French President Nicolas Sarkozy and the Dutch, Belgian, and Mexican embassies Monday. A suspicious package sent Tuesday to the office of German Chancellor Angela Merkel marked with the Greek economic ministry’s return address may also be connected.

On Monday, the Greek police apprehended two men, ages 22 and 24 at a courier center in the Athens neighborhood of Pangrati. They were reportedly armed with pistols and bulletproof vests and allegedly caught with explosive parcels. A courier company employee became suspicious of the men because of their wigs and baseball caps.

The younger of the two suspects has been identified as the member of SPF, one of the groups that has risen to prominence in the last few years, especialy since Dec. 6, 2008 when the shooting death of a 15-year-old boy by police set off nationwide youth riots.

Embassies in Greece have been on full alert following the bombings that began Monday. The German and Bulgarian embassies notified the police of suspicious packages and they were disposed of in controlled detonations. A courier handed over another package addressed to the Chilean embassy.

Greeks have become somewhat accustomed to anarchists setting off bombs from time to time, typically without injury. But this recent increase, coupled with several recent fatalities, will do little to generate much sympathy for their cause, say security experts. An Afghan boy and his mother were killed in March when he accidentally set off a bomb while rummaging through a dumpster. On June 24, a booby-trapped parcel addressed to minister Michalis Chrisochoides killed top aide George Vassilakis.

“Greeks have an understanding with their terrorists,” Mr. Kiesling says. “You don’t hurt anybody and we don’t look for you too hard.”

The mistakes made by the two men caught on Monday practically delivered them to the police, Kiesling says.

“The members of these groups are young amateurs,” adds Ms. Bossis. “But they are inventive amateurs and dangerous.”

By csmonitor.com

A police officer prepares for a controlled explosion of a suspect package in Athens, Greece, Monday. Petros Giannakouris/AP

MULTAN, Pakistan — A bomb planted on a motorcycle exploded at the gate of a famous Sufi shrine in central Pakistan during morning prayers Monday, killing at least five people, officials said.

The blast at the Farid Shakar Ganj shrine in Punjab province was the latest in a string of attacks targeting Sufi shrines in Pakistan. Islamist militants often target Sufis, whose mystical practices clash with their hardline interpretation of Islam.

The dead from Monday’s blast included at least one woman, said Maher Aslam Hayat, a senior government official in the Pak Pattan district where the shrine is located. At least 13 others were wounded in the explosion, he said.

The bombing significantly damaged a row of shops outside the shrine, said Hayat. But the shrine itself, which is dedicated to a 12th century Sufi saint, was largely undamaged, he said.

Local TV footage showed the twisted and charred body of the motorcycle on which the bomb was planted. It also showed large piles of broken wood and chunks of concrete from the shops damaged by the blast.

After the attack, a top Sufi scholar, Mufti Muneebur Rehman, criticized the government for not doing enough to protect the Sufi population. Pakistan is 95 percent Muslim, and the majority practice Sufi-influenced Islam.

“Our rulers are too busy serving foreign masters and have not prioritized protecting the people and sacred places from terrorists,” said Rehman.

Earlier this month, two suspected suicide bombers attacked a beloved Sufi shrine in Pakistan’s largest city, Karachi, killing at least eight people and wounding 65 others.

A suicide attack in July killed 47 people at the nation’s most revered Sufi shrine, Data Darbar in the eastern city of Lahore. That attack infuriated many Pakistanis, who saw it as an unjustified assault on peaceful civilians.

The government has waged a sustained military campaign against militants based in its semiautonomous tribal region along the Afghan border who have declared war against the Pakistani state. But militant violence remains a problem.

A roadside bomb struck a passenger van in the Orakzai tribal region on Monday, killing three people and wounding two others, said Aurangzeb Khan, a local government administrator. The blast tore apart the vehicle, which was passing near the village of Tanda.

The Pakistani military declared victory in Orakzai in June after pounding Taliban militants in the area for months with airstrikes and artillery. But militant attacks and military operations in the area have continued.

Army helicopter gunships pounded suspected militant hideouts in Orakzai on Sunday, killing 15 alleged insurgents, said Jehanzeb Khan, another local government official.

By foxnews.com

Oct. 25, 2010: In this photo released by China's Xinhua news agency, people gather at the blast site in Pak Pattan, a city in Pakistan's Punjab province, early Monday morning

At least 32 killed in multiple attacks in Karachi where recent unrest is raising fears of instability.

At least 32 people have been killed in shootouts in Pakistan’s southern city of Karachi, police have said.

In the deadliest attack on Tuesday, at least 13 people were shot dead when six armed men on motorbikes opened fire in the Shershah Kabari market.

“The attackers came on motorcycles and started indiscriminate firing,” Raja Riyasat, a police official, told the AFP news agency.

Several others were injured and Arif Razzaq, a second police official, said the death toll may rise as some of the wounded were in critical condition.

Al Jazeera’s Kamal Hyder, reporting from the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, said the scene of the attack was a scrap market normally frequented by labourers from other parts of the country.

“This would have been a busy area because in Pakistan, scrap dealers make a lot of money,” he said. “It’s a country where everyone cannot afford to buy brand new automobile parts.”

He said sporadic gunfights were ongoing in different parts of the city and had resulted 19 more deaths.

Election violence

About 60 people have been killed in Karachi since Saturday when violence erupted ahead of a by-election to replace a provincial legislator murdered in August.

It was not clear whether Tuesday’s attacks were related to that violence.

Our correspondent said the recent unrest stemmed from a political power struggle.

“For the last few months, various political parties have been battling for control of Karachi.

“The Awami National Party and MQM [Muttahida Qaumi Movement] are fighting what appears to be a turf war,” he said. The Awami National Party is MQM’s main rival for political posts and control of the city.

“The people of Karachi have been held hostage by these political groups.”

The MQM, which is the dominant political force in Karachi, has stepped up pressure on the government to stem the last days’ violence, saying its workers were among those killed.

Some sources said the MQM threatened over the weekend to pull out of the federal coalition government with the Pakistan People’s Party to protest the violence.

The move, which party sources say was put “on hold” on assurances of strong action to contain the violence, could lead to the government losing its National Assembly majority, or even its downfall if the MQM sides with the opposition.

Karachi has long been plagued by political and ethnic violence and there is concern that the city is being used as a haven for the Taliban. Some violence in the city is also linked to criminal gangs.

At the same time, Karachi is the commercial capital of Pakistan. It generates 68 per cent of the government’s revenue and 25 per cent of Pakistan’s gross domestic product.

By aljazeera.net

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Around 50 people have been killed in Karachi since Saturday when violence erupted ahead of a by-election [AFP

More than five years after the attacks brought terror to the capital, bereaved families will finally have the chance to ask officials questions about whether their loved ones could have been saved.

The inquest, which gets under way at the Royal Courts of Justice today, will have a wide-ranging remit to examine whether the emergency services’ response was adequate and whether MI5 and the police could have prevented the 2005 atrocities.

Four suicide bombers armed with home-made explosives packed into rucksacks launched co-ordinated attacks on three Tube trains and a bus on July 7, 2005, in Britain’s worst terrorist atrocity since the 1988 Lockerbie bombing.

It has taken so long to hold the inquests because they could not start until after the trial of three men accused of helping the attackers choose their targets.

The trio were cleared of the charge at Kingston Crown Court last year, although two of them were convicted of conspiracy to attend a terrorist training camp.

Lady Justice Hallett, who will chair the inquest, is sitting without a jury.

She has already ruled the proceedings will have a wide remit, examining all four bombing scenes to determine whether more could have been done to save the victims at each bomb site.

By foxnews.com

In this July 7, 2005 file photo, a forensic officer walks next to the wreckage of a double decker bus with its top blown off and damaged cars scattered on the road at Tavistock Square in central London.

The Pakistan-Afghan crossing was closed 11 days ago after a NATO incursion that killed two Pakistani soldiers. Militants took advantage of the blockade to attack more than 150 parked trucks, killing at least 6 people.

Reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan — Pakistan on Sunday reopened a key Afghan border crossing used by trucks and tankers ferrying fuel and supplies to NATO troops in Afghanistan, ending an 11-day blockade imposed after a NATO helicopter cross-border incursion that killed two Pakistani troops.

The first of hundreds of trucks and tankers stranded at the Torkham checkpoint at the Khyber Pass since Sept. 30 began moving across the border early afternoon Sunday. The border reopening should ease the massive bottleneck created by the blockade, which was followed by a series of militant attacks on parked NATO oil tankers and trucks across Pakistan.

More than 150 NATO trucks were set ablaze or damaged in those attacks. At least six people were killed in the attacks.

Although U.S. officials hailed the border reopening as a welcome development, relations between Islamabad and Washington remained palpably tense. The killing of the two Pakistani border soldiers by NATO helicopters on Sept. 30 was seen in Pakistan as an intolerable violation of the country’s sovereignty and came at a time when the U.S. had dramatically stepped up its drone-missile campaign against Taliban and Al Qaeda militants hiding out in Pakistan’s largely lawless tribal areas along the Afghan border.

In September, the U.S. carried out 22 drone-missile strikes in Pakistan’s tribal areas, most of them directed at the Afghan Taliban wing known as the Haqqani network in the North Waziristan region. Pakistan has balked at moving against Haqqani network fighters, a reluctance that has exasperated officials in Washington because Haqqani fighters use North Waziristan as a base for launching attacks on U.S., NATO and Afghan forces in Afghanistan.

Pakistani officials decided on Saturday that they would reopen the Torkham crossing. That decision came four days after the U.S. government and NATO formally apologized for the deaths of the Pakistani soldiers, saying the helicopter crews mistook the men for insurgents they had been pursuing across the Afghan-Pakistani border.

Pakistan plays a vital role in keeping supply lines open for U.S. and Western troops battling Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan. About 40% of NATO’s non-lethal supplies bound for Afghanistan move by truck from the Pakistani port city of Karachi to either the northwestern border crossing at Torkham or the southern crossing at Chaman. The Chaman crossing, located in Balochistan province, was not shut down after the Sept. 30 NATO helicopter incursion.

In recent years, U.S and NATO forces have established northern routes through former Soviet republics in Central Asia as alternate supply lines, which has allowed NATO to reduce its reliance on Pakistan as a transit nation. At one point, 80% of NATO’s non-lethal supplies moved through Pakistan.

By latimes.com

A truck carrying fuel for NATO forces in Afghanistan enters into Afghanistan through Pakistan's Torkham border crossing point.

U.S. and NATO forces have killed more than 100 fighters from a Pakistan-based faction of the Taliban during two weeks of stepped-up military operations along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, the Pentagon said Tuesday.

The intensified border operations have contributed to tension between the United States and Pakistan that reached a critical point last week, when U.S. forces crossed into Pakistan and mistakenly killed three Pakistani frontier forces. Pakistan closed a key border crossing used to supply fuel to U.S. forces in Afghanistan in retaliation.

Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell expressed remorse for what he called a mistake by U.S. forces and said results of a joint NATO-Afghan investigation of the incident would be released Wednesday.

Morrell said U.S. and NATO forces targeted Haqqani network fighters using border areas as refuge in eastern Afghanistan. He said more than 100 were killed, and later gave a more precise figure.

The tally was an example of an increasing U.S. willingness to provide figures for enemy deaths in a counterinsurgency fight that U.S. commanders have long insisted can never be won by attrition.

“The threat is real, and though we’ve had success in killing 110 of them, there clearly are more of them out there who remain a threat to our forces,” Morrell said, adding that the Islamist fighters also battle Afghan and Pakistani forces.

The Haqqani network is a Pakistan-based faction of the Taliban with close ties to al-Qaida.

The group was started by Jalaluddin Haqqani, a commander once supported by Pakistan and the U.S. during the 1980s war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. Haqqani has since turned against the U.S., and American military officials have said his organization - now effectively led by his son, Sirajuddin - presents one of the greatest threats to foreign forces in Afghanistan.

Morrell said he has not heard anything to suggest the U.S. will change the way its aircraft operate along the border, although he would not discuss specific rules of engagement.

“We will retain the right to defend our forces, to defend ourselves,” he said during a Pentagon press conference. “And our forces who operate on the border with Pakistan are in a very dangerous and difficult situation.”

The helicopter strike that killed the three Frontier Corps forces was the third such incursion into Pakistan in less than a week.

Pakistan is extremely sensitive to any U.S. military presence inside its borders, and conspiracy theories about U.S. motives abound. The incidents further opened Pakistan’s weak civilian government to charges at home that it is a U.S. puppet.

The stepped-up operations coincided with but are not directly tied to the three cross-border incursions, which U.S. officials acknowledge puts additional pressure on Islamabad to respond.

“There are occasional setbacks in our day-to-day relations, this being one of them, the most recent of them,” Morrell said.

Other U.S. officials stressed that the United States is not intentionally squeezing Pakistan to make the point that if it fails to vigorously target militants the United States will step in.

A small bomb damaged a truck in northwestern Pakistan on Tuesday that was carrying oil to NATO troops in Afghanistan - the latest attack on stalled supply convoys since Pakistan shut the border crossing last week.

U.S. and Pakistani officials have said the Torkham crossing would probably reopen within a few days. U.S. military officials said the closure has not harmed delivery of fuel to U.S. forces, although alternate routes are less convenient and more expensive.

The increased military operations along the border and CIA drone strikes farther inland are a logical outgrowth of better intelligence and targeting information flowing from sources inside and outside Pakistan, officials said. At the same time they represent a calculated risk that the tense partnership between Washington and Islamabad can withstand the inevitable backlash.

“There are mistakes. There are incidents which create misunderstandings,” Morrell said.

“But that does not mean the relationship - this crucial relationship to us - is in any way derailed.”

Besides safe passage for NATO supplies, the U.S. needs Pakistan to help target the Taliban and al-Qaida militants who stage cross-border attacks on troops in Afghanistan. Pakistan meanwhile receives billions of dollars in military and civilian assistance that help keep its economy afloat.

By kansascity.com

A driver of Afghanistan-bound NATO truck sleeps as vehicles are parked at Pakistani border post Torkham in northwest of Pakistan on Tuesday, Oct. 5, 2010. Pakistan blocked a vital supply route for U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan in apparent retaliation for an alleged cross-border helicopter strike by the coalition that killed three Pakistani frontier troops.

The White House says President Barack Obama still considers Pakistan a strong ally in the fight against extremist forces.  Comments by Mr. Obama’s press secretary, Robert Gibbs, came Monday as the United States and Pakistan continued to discuss the closure of a key border crossing and amid concern about attacks on NATO supply convoys.

At a White House news briefing, Gibbs was asked about the attacks on NATO fuel tanker trucks, four of which occurred since Pakistan closed the northwestern Khyber Pass Torkhum border crossing last week.

The attacks followed what NATO says was a self-defense hot-pursuit action by helicopters.  NATO expressed regret over the deaths of three Pakistani soldiers; a joint investigation is continuing.

Gibbs said it is his understanding that concerns relating to the border closure were the subject of discussions at the State Department between U.S. and Pakistani diplomats, adding that those talks were close to producing some results.

The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for Monday’s attack on 20 tankers carrying fuel for NATO troops in Afghanistan, calling it a response to U.S. drone strikes.  Pakistani officials say one such strike killed eight militants, including some that officials describe as German nationals.  The United States does not confirm drone strikes, which Pakistan says is a violation of its sovereignty.

Although he declined to comment on the latest suspected U.S. drone attack, Press Secretary Gibbs responded this way when asked whether the U.S. still believes that Pakistan and Afghanistan are strong allies in the fight against the Taliban and al-Qaida.

“We have strong and important partnerships with Afghanistan [and] in Pakistan - a strong ally in common pursuits to address extremism and the threat that it poses,” said Robert Gibbs.

As when asked previously about the U.S. view of Pakistani cooperation, Gibbs cited what he called the renewed effort that Pakistan has made in recent years to address the extremist threat - one that affects Pakistan and the United States.

Gibbs was also asked whether the Obama administration believes a majority of Americans support the sacrifices the United States is making in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“I think that the American people understand very much what is at stake and the important mission that we have over there,” he said. “Obviously, there are political viewpoints that vary across the spectrum.  The president, though, understands what we must do in addressing the threat to those countries and to us.”

At the State Department, spokesman P. J. Crowley told reporters that the United States is “quite satisfied” with the level of cooperation and the coordination it has with Pakistan.  He echoed Gibbs’s comments about Pakistan’s recognition of the threat that extremists pose to its stability.

On the question of the closure of the major border crossing, Crowley stressed that the United States and NATO have multiple supply routes into Afghanistan, and he said the flow of materiel continues.

By voanews.com

US and NATO fuel trucks burning in Shikarpur, southern Pakistan, 01 Oct 2010

Men believed to be militants set fire to 35 tankers in Pakistan that were carrying fuel for NATO troops in Afghanistan on Friday, officials said, a day after three soldiers were killed in a cross-border NATO airstrike.

Senior local officials blamed “extremists” for the attack on the tankers, which took place in the southern town of Shikarpur. About 12 people, their faces covered, opened fire with small arms into the air to scare away the drivers, and then they set the fires. Ten people were later arrested.

Chief Abdul Hameed Khoso of the Shikarpur police said the damage to the tankers varied, but he added, “There is no loss of human life.”

In another part of Pakistan, two unidentified men fired on a NATO tanker traveling through a town in Baluchistan Province toward Afghanistan. Two people burned to death after the vehicle caught fire, security officials said.

The attack comes during a tense week in relations between the United States and Pakistan. Angered by repeated incursions by NATO helicopters over the past week, Pakistan has blocked a supply route for coalition troops in Afghanistan. Analysts say border incursions and disruptions in NATO supplies underline growing tensions in a relationship that the United States relies on heavily to stabilize Afghanistan.

The latest cross-border attack took place in the northwest, when three Pakistani soldiers were killed and three were wounded as NATO forces chased militants in the Kurram tribal region.

It was the third such attack in a week, the Pakistan military said. NATO said the helicopters briefly crossed into Pakistani airspace after coming under fire from people there.

Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani, speaking in Parliament, said Pakistan was a partner in the war against Islamist militancy but would allow no infringement of its sovereignty.

“I want to assure the entire nation from this house that we will consider other options if there is interference in the sovereignty of our country,” Mr. Gilani said without elaborating.

Pakistan’s ambassador to Belgium lodged a protest with NATO’s deputy general secretary over the incursions, the Pakistan Embassy said in a statement.

On Thursday, hours after the cross-border attack, Pakistani authorities halted tankers carrying supplies for the NATO forces passing through the Khyber tribal region on the Afghan border.

About three-quarters of cargo for NATO forces in Afghanistan moves through Pakistan, most via two border crossings: Chaman north of Quetta in Baluchistan, and Torkham at the Khyber Pass.

Delicate gear like ammunition, weapons and critical equipment is flown in.

By nytimes.com

Police inspected a row of smoldering NATO fuel trucks in southern Pakistan after an attack on Friday.