US apologises for attack on Pakistani soldiers

The US ambassador to Pakistan today apologised for a recent helicopter attack that killed Pakistani soldiers near the Afghan border.

Anne Patterson said in a statement that a joint investigation has established that US helicopters mistook the soldiers for insurgents they had been pursuing.

Pakistan has said the attack on September 30 killed three members of Pakistan’s Frontier Corps and wounded three others.

But Patterson’s statement said two soldiers were killed and four were injured.

Following the attack, Pakistan shut down a key border crossing used to ship a large proportion of goods to Nato soldiers in Afghanistan.