30.11.11 Menas Borders NATO-Pakistan clash highlights border confusion

A NATO attack on a Pakistani checkpoint which killed 24 soldiers has once again highlighted the ill-defined border between Pakistan and Afghanistan – a critical issue as the war begins to wind down.

On 25th November a NATO helicopter, allegedly responding to fire from the checkpoint, crossed the border from Afghanistan and attacked the post. NATO called the incident a tragic accident, but insisted that it occurred when NATO and Afghan forces came under fire from what were believed to be Taliban training camps.

Public anger in Pakistan, already high against America for cross-border drone strikes and the infiltration of Pakistani soil to kill Osama Bin Laden in May, has boiled over as a result of the raid.

The government, under pressure from thousands of street protestors, has felt compelled to respond. It has blocked NATO supplies crossing the border to Afghanistan, ordered the US to vacate an airbase on Pakistani soil, and has withdrawn from a major international conference next week on a solution to the Afghan conflict.

The exact circumstances of the raid are still under dispute but it marks an escalation of an increasingly hostile relationship on the Afghan-Pakistan border. This year Afghan and Pakistani forces have regularly exchanged mortar and rocket fire across the line, and both Afghanistan and NATO have blamed Pakistan for allowing hundreds of militants to launch attacks from Pakistani territory.

Much of the tension is driven by the fact that the boundary remains vague and largely undemarcated. Afghanistan does not formally recognise the Durand Line, agreed in 1893, and there is no consensus on where the border lies: rival maps vary by up to 5km.

Although the Pakistani military officially informs NATO about the location of its border posts, new checkpoints are sometimes set up without information being passed on. The mountainous nature of the area makes it even more difficult to verify the precise sites.

Sources; Reuters, BBC