- World News - Sport - Finance - Health - Entertainment - Technology -

WASHINGTON: The US
military on Monday
named an Air Force
general to lead an
investigation into allied air
strikes that left 24 Pakistani
soldiers dead and provoked
outrage in Islamabad. Pakistan
has reacted with fury and cut
off crucial supply routes to
NATO-led forces in Afghanistan
after Saturday's incident near a
checkpoint in the eastern
Afghan province of Kunar. The
chief of US Central Command
appointed Brigadier General
Stephen Clark, from Air Force
Special Operations Command in
Florida, as the investigating
officer for the probe that will
also include a NATO
representative, officials said.
The governments of
Afghanistan and Pakistan "will
be invited to participate,"
Central Command said in a
statement. Central Command,
which oversees US forces in
the Middle East and
Afghanistan, wanted to
"include these government
representatives to the
maximum extent possible to
determine what happened and
preclude it from happening
again." The NATO-led
International Security
Assistance Force (ISAF) sent an
initial assessment team over
the weekend to the border to
look into the incident. Pakistan
has charged the air strikes
were unprovoked, while
Afghan and Western officials
reportedly say Pakistani forces
opened fire first. Before
Saturday's attack, US military
officers had been working to
shore up cooperation with
Pakistani forces along the
Afghan border. Communication
between units on the border
virtually broke down in the
aftermath of a US raid in May
that killed Al-Qaeda chief
Osama bin Laden at his
Pakistani compound.