ISLAMABAD, Pakistan ‚ The Pakistani military said on Tuesday its troops would fire on foreign forces if they crossed the country's borders but denied that this was a change of policy.
The comments came after the United States sent commandos into Pakistan to fight the Taliban and Al Qaeda earlier this month, and as confusion continued to swirl over a possible Monday incursion by United States forces into Pakistani territory along the border with Afghanistan.
Local residents and a Pakistani government official said Monday two American helicopters were repulsed in South Waziristan when Pakistani soldiers fired at them.
But the Pakistani and United States military publicly denied any such incident, and a Pakistani intelligence official said that an American helicopter had mistakenly crossed the border briefly, leading Pakistani ground forces to fire into the air.
On Tuesday, a military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, said the army reserved the right to use force to defend the country and its people, but he said there was "no change in policy."
Asked what the Pakistan military would do if there was a future incursion by American troops, he said: "There is a big if involved. We will see to it when such a situation arises."
Tensions have been mounting since the United States intensified its campaign in Pakistan's border areas against militants suspected of having ties to Al Qaeda and the Taliban. The United States has become increasingly frustrated that the militants use the border areas as a refuge to stage attacks against American and NATO soldiers in southern Afghanistan.
On Sept. 3, helicopter-borne American Special Operations forces made their first publicly acknowledged ground operation on Pakistani soil, when they attacked Qaeda militants in a Pakistani village near the border with Afghanistan.
Following that raid, in an unusually strong response, Pakistan's military chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, said that his forces would not tolerate such incursions and would defend the country's sovereignty "at all costs."
The raid complicated relations with the new civilian government in Pakistan, which is trying to stabilize the country after the resignation in August of President Pervez Musharraf, whom the Bush administration regarded as a strong ally in its campaign against terrorism.
But the administration has criticized Pakistan in recent months for not doing enough to curb attacks by the Taliban and Al Qaeda, which keep bases inside the Pakistani tribal region and cross the border to attack American and NATO forces in Afghanistan. According to senior American officials, President Bush secretly approved orders in July that for the first time allow American Special Operations forces to carry out ground assaults inside Pakistan without the prior approval of the Pakistani government.