KARACHI, Pakistan ?? Thousands gathered outside the American Consulate in Karachi on Sunday to protest against a NATO cross-border air attack that killed 24 Pakistani troops and is threatening a strategic alliance between the countries.
A Reuters reporter at the scene said the angry crowd shouted "Down with America". One young man climbed on the wall surrounding the heavily fortified compound and attached a Pakistani flag to barbed wire.
The NATO attack was the latest perceived provocation by the United States, which infuriated Pakistan's powerful military with a unilateral U.S. special forces raid that killed al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden in May.
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NATO helicopters and fighter jets based in Afghanistan
attacked two Pakistan military outposts on Saturday
, killing the soldiers in what Pakistan said was an unprovoked assault.
However, Reuters reported Sunday that Afghan and NATO forces had come under cross-border fire prior to the airstrike. It cited a Western official as well as a senior Afghan security official.
Pakistan also ordered the U.S. to vacate an air base that is used by American drones to target al-Qaida and Taliban militants in the country's tribal region along the Afghan border. The U.S. has relied heavily on drone strikes in the past few years, partly out of frustration with Pakistan's refusal to target militants using its territory to stage attacks against American and NATO troops in Afghanistan.
"America is attacking our borders. The government should immediately break ties with it," said Naseema Baluch, a housewife attending the Karachi demonstration. "America wants to occupy our country but we will not let it do that."
U.S. and NATO officials are trying to defuse tensions but the soldiers' deaths are testing a bad marriage of convenience between Washington and Islamabad.
"This was a tragic unintended incident," NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in a statement, adding that he fully supported a NATO investigation that was under way. We will determine what happened, and draw the right lessons."
Video: White House treads lightly around Pakistan situation (on this page)
That is unlikely to cool tempers. Many Pakistanis believe their army is fighting a war against militants that only serves Western interests and hurts their country.
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"U.S. stabs Pakistan in the back, again," said a headline in the Daily Times, reflecting fury over the attack in Pakistan, a regional power seen as critical to U.S. efforts to stabilize neighboring Afghanistan.
Pakistan on Sunday buried the troops killed in the attack.
'Deep sense of rage'
Television stations showed the coffins draped in green and white Pakistani flags in a prayer ceremony at the headquarters of the regional command in Peshawar attended by army chief General Ashfaq Kayani.
Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar spoke with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by telephone early on Sunday to convey "the deep sense of rage felt across Pakistan".
"This negates the progress made by the two countries on improving relations and forces Pakistan to revisit the terms of engagement," a Foreign Ministry statement quoted Khar as telling her U.S. counterpart.
Video: Pakistan blaming NATO for soldiers' deaths (on this page)
Pakistan shut down NATO supply routes into Afghanistan ? used for sending in nearly half of the alliance's land shipments ? in retaliation for the worst such attack since Islamabad uneasily allied itself with Washington following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
Tensions could rise further if militants unleash attacks against the stranded trucks.
Suspected militants destroyed around 150 trucks and injured drivers and police a year ago after Pakistan closed one of its Afghan border crossings to NATO supplies for about 10 days in retaliation for a U.S. helicopter attack that accidentally killed two Pakistani soldiers.
The situation could be more dire this time because Pakistan, outraged at the alleged NATO attack before dawn Saturday, has closed both its crossings. Nearly 300 trucks carrying coalition supplies are now backed up at Torkham in the northwest Khyber tribal area and Chaman in southwestern Baluchistan province. Last year, Pakistan only closed Torkham.
"We are worried," said driver Saeed Khan, speaking by telephone from the border terminal in Torkham. "This area is always vulnerable to attacks. Sometimes rockets are lobbed at us. Sometimes we are targeted by bombs."
NATO ships nearly 50 percent of its non-lethal supplies to its troops in Afghanistan through Pakistan.
Meanwhile, about 500 members of Jamaat-e-Islami, Pakistan's most influential religious party, staged a protest in Mohmand tribal area, where the NATO attack took place.
"Jihad is the only answer to America", they yelled.
Pakistan is reviewing whether it will go ahead with plans to attend a major international conference in Bonn next month on the future of Afghanistan in light of the NATO attack.
Around 40 troops were stationed at the outposts at the time of the attack, military sources said.
"They without any reasons attacked on our post and killed soldiers asleep," a senior Pakistani officer told Reuters.
Slideshow: Pakistan: A nation in turmoil (on this page)
Pakistan responded with unusually strong condemnations and said it reserved the right to retaliate.
U.S. ties with Pakistan have suffered several big setbacks starting with the unilateral U.S. special forces raid in May that killed bin Laden in a Pakistani town where he had apparently been living for years.
Pakistan condemned the secret operation as a flagrant violation of its sovereignty, while suspicions arose in Washington that members of Pakistan's military intelligence had harbored the al-Qaida leader.
Unreliable ally?
The military came under unprecedented criticism from both Pakistanis who said it failed to protect the country and American officials who said bin Laden's presence was proof the country was an unreliable ally in the war on militancy.
Slideshow: After the raid: Inside bin Laden's compound (on this page)
Pakistan's army, one of the world's largest, may see the NATO incursion from Afghanistan as a chance to reassert itself, especially since the deaths of the soldiers are likely to unite generals and politicians, whose ties are normally uneasy.
Pakistan's jailing of a CIA contractor, Raymond Davis, and U.S. accusations that Pakistan backed a militant attack on the U.S. embassy in Kabul have added to the tensions.
"From Raymond Davis and his gun slinging in the streets of Lahore to the Osama bin Laden incident, and now to the firing on Pakistani soldiers on the volatile Pakistan-Afghan border, things hardly seem able to get any worse," said the Daily Times.
Story: Woman named Pakistan envoy to United States
Islamabad depends on billions in U.S. aid and Washington believes Pakistan can help it bring about peace in Afghanistan ahead of a combat troop withdrawal at the end of 2014.
But it is constantly battling Anti-American sentiment over everything from U.S. drone aircraft strikes to Washington's calls for economic reforms.
"We should end our friendship with America. It's better to have animosity with America than friendship. It's nobody's friend," said laborer Sameer Baluch.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
Source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45452110/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia/
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