In memoriam, Linda Norgrove, humanitarian in Afghanistan

The New York Times reports:

A Scottish aid worker who was taken hostage two weeks ago by the Taliban in eastern Afghanistan was killed by her captors early Saturday during an unsuccessful rescue raid, according to the British Foreign Office.

The aid worker, Linda Norgrove, 36, was regional director of a jobs program financed by the United States Agency for International Development for Afghanistan’s eastern region.

Former colleagues described her as a person of enormous warmth and kindness who was deeply committed to helping people in poor areas of the world and who had spent years in Peru and Laos as well as in Afghanistan.

Ms. Norgrove loved Afghanistan from the first time she arrived in 2005 on a United Nations mission, colleagues said. While many United Nations workers stay for a year or two, she stayed for more than three years working on environmental programs and helping to administer an alternative livelihoods program for farmers in poppy farming regions.

In her latest job she was the only expatriate in the Jalalabad office of DAI, directing about 200 Afghan professionals and coordinating with Afghan ministries and local companies. Sensitive to local tradition, she always wore the long, loose tunic and trousers known as a shalwar kameez and covered her hair with a large scarf. “I’ve seen few people among Afghan and Muslim people like her,” said a man who worked with her who gave his name as Bakhtiar. “She was very kind, very helpful, a lovely lady, a very respectful woman.”

Deepest condolences and sympathies to Linda Norgrove’s family and friends.

Defense ministers arrive for meeting in Vietnam

Defense Secretary Robert Gates, right, is greeted by, from left, Sr. Col. Nguyen Hong Quang, Maj. Gen. Nguyen Huu Manh, and Second Lt. Nguyen Thang Anh as he deplanes a U.S. Military Aircraft as he arrives at the Noi Bai International Airport in Hanoi, Vietnam, Sunday, Oct. 10, 2010. Gates is in Vietnam to reassure jittery Southeast Asian nations this week that the United States won't cede its longtime role as the pre-eminent military power in the Pacific as Chinese naval ambitions expand. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, Pool)

Monday, October 11, 2010
AP

HANOI, Vietnam — Defense ministers from Asian and other nations began arriving in Vietnam's capital Sunday for a regional security meeting that follows the heating of a number of sea disputes involving China.

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates is attending the two-day meeting of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, where he will hold military talks with Chinese Gen. Liang Guanglie — the first between the countries in eight months after China cut off contact to protest a U.S. arms package for Taiwan.

The United States is concerned that the newly heated territorial disputes could hurt access to one of the world's busiest commercial sea lanes.

In addition to meeting the Chinese general, Gates will meet with delegates from some of the small nations that want U.S. support to counter the growth of China as a regional power.

Pentagon officials traveling with Gates said he will make the same argument about U.S. interests in the Pacific and the limits of Chinese dominion that has infuriated China before. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of sensitive discussions among Southeast Asian defense chiefs.

The gathering, which starts Monday, comes a month after a spat between China and Japan involving a collision between a Chinese trawler and two Japanese patrol vessels off disputed islands in the East China Sea claimed by both countries.

Japan detained the Chinese boat captain, enraging Beijing. He was eventually released, and the two countries officially announced an end to the dispute last week, but each continues to claim the territory.

Japanese Defense Minister Toshimi Kitazawa planned to meet with his Chinese counterpart in Hanoi, according to Kyodo News agency, in what would be the first military-to-military talks since the incident.

Vietnam last week also accused China of detaining nine of its fishermen last month in the South China Sea near the Paracel Islands that are claimed by both countries. Vietnam's Foreign Ministry has demanded that the sailors be released, but China says the boat owner must first pay a fine for fishing with explosives, the ministry said.

China claims sovereignty over the entire South China Sea, including the Paracel and Spratly islands, which are also claimed in whole or in part by Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines.

China has become more aggressive in asserting its sovereignty over the disputed areas, prompting U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to say in July that it was in the U.S. national interest for the Communist giant to resolve territorial claims in the South China Sea with its neighbors.

The defense meeting brings together the ASEAN countries — Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam — along with counterparts from Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Russia and the United States.

Associated Press Writer Anne Gearan contributed to this report.

We must agree with Chua Soi Lek on need to review the 30% Bumi Equity.

Chua Reiterates Need To Review 30 Per Cent Bumiputera Equity

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 10 (Bernama) -- MCA chief Datuk Seri Dr Chua Soi Lek Sunday reiterated the need for the government to review the 30 per cent Bumiputera equity target in line with the Economic Transformation Plan (ETP).
He said this was also to allow the economic cake of the country to expand further and to achieve its target of high income growth of six per cent annually.
He said the 12 major economic sectors under the National Key Economic Areas (NKEAS) including oil and gas and telecommunication, should also be liberalised.
Speaking to reporters after the conclusion of MCA's 57th annual general meeting at Wisma MCA here, Dr Chua these were crucial elements to quantum leap the country into a high-income developed nation.
"Every Malaysian is the shareholder of the country. So when there is a good economic growth, everybody would get a good slice of the economic cake.
"But if we are unable to liberalise and achieve good economic growth, then the economic cake and the slice that we have would be very limited," he said.
However, Dr Chua stressed that this did not mean "robbing Ali to pay Ah Chong or vice versa".
When asked whether the party was ready to disagree with UMNO on certain national issues, Dr Chua said MCA, as a mono-ethnic political party in a multiracial country, there should always be the need to accept the political varieties of all parties, adding that national interests should be above parties' interests.
tunku : i agree with chua soi lek, lets review the 30 per cent bumiputera equity policy, it is not applicable anymore.the percentage should match the population percentage.that means bumi equity should be at least 60% to be fair.the 30% is not fair to the bumis.chua soi lek, be grateful and look around.

Pakistan Opens Khyber Crossing to NATO Supply Trucks but issues Threats over Hot Pursuit

The Pakistani government has decided to reopen the Torkham border crossing between Pakistan and Afghanistan, the route whereby 70 percent of US/ NATO supplies and 40 percent of fuel are brought by truck into Afghanistan. The Pakistani Frontier Corps and the Afghanistan National Army began work Sunday to coordinate the clearing of the huge backlog of trucks that have been stuck at the crossing for a week and a half. Some reports say that the opening is expected to occur on Monday.

Pakistan closed the crossing to trucks transporting goods for NATO & the US after a September 30 incident in which US helicopter gunships made incursions into Pakistani territory and then fired missiles at a Frontiers Corps checkpoint, apparently mistaking the scouts for Taliban. Two scouts were killed and four wounded. Pakistani nerves were already raw because of unmanned drone strikes on Pakistani territory. US President Barack Obama and Gen. David Petraeus appear to have decided to push for more hot pursuit missions into Pakistan from Afghanistan, and this decision was absolutely unacceptable to the Pakistani military, as well as to the public. When the Frontiers Corps scouts were killed, Chief of Staff Gen. Ashfaq Kayani appears to have felt the moment opportune to nip the ‘hot pursuit’ doctrine in the bud by closing the main NATO transport route and reminding Washington just how badly it needs Pakistani good will.

The US and NATO were forced into uncharacteristic apologies to the Pakistani government, over which Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani and President Asaf Zardari waxed lyrical, and which appear to have mollified public opinion somewhat and to have saved face for the Pakistani elite. My guess is that the US has given representations to Kayani that no uncoordinated hot pursuits will be launched into Pakistan from Afghanistan by the US military.

In fact, In fact, Interior Minister Rahman Malik openly threatened the US and NATO after the apology was issued:: “Pakistani forces are capable of defending the sovereignty of the country and in case of any incursion in future, they will use any option in response.”

To add insult to injury, the Pakistani government is considering imposing a tax on the NATO supply trucks. The huge trucks tear up the roads and do represent a cost to the government.

CNN has a video report on the reopening of the border crossing at the Khyber Pass:

In the past week and a half, as the border closure idled the some 3000 trucks that typically are on the roads supplying NATO, the Pakistani Taliban sent 150 fuel trucks into flames and killed 15 persons. Wire services quote some truck drivers as saying that driving these supply trucks is getting too risky.

The whole affair reveals how weak Bush’s wars have made the US. In 2001 Bush officials could just threaten to reduce Pakistan to rubble if it did not turn on the Taliban and join the Bush “war on terror.”

Now, with the US bogged down in Afghanistan and Iraq and in the wake of 9 years during which the US military was shown supremely vulnerable to unconventional military tactics, no such threat directed at Islamabad would be taken seriously. The US genuinely needs Pakistani help. The threats are being issued in the opposite direction, and the US military is the party that is being forced to swallow its pride and make an about-face on policy.

Israeli Cabinet Approves Loyalty Oath For New Citizens

The Israeli Cabinet has approved an amendment to a citizenship law that requires new citizens to declare their loyalty to a “Jewish and democratic state,” the prime minister’s office said Sunday.

A statement from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office confirmed vote, saying 22 ministers voted for the change and eight voted against it.

Now that the proposal has passed the Cabinet, it will be taken up by Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, for passage into law.

Netanyahu cited the nation’s Declaration of Independence, which says Israel is both the “national state of the Jewish people” and a democratic state “in which all its citizens — Jewish and non-Jewish — enjoy fully equal rights.”

“Democracy is the soul of Israel and we cannot do without it,” Netanyahu said, according to a statement from his media adviser.

He noted that Israel was the only democracy in the Middle East, and that “there is no other Jewish state in the world.”

“The combination of these two lofty values expresses the foundation of our national life and anyone who would like to join us needs to recognize this,” Netanyahu said.

Netanyahu announced last week he would push now for adding language to Israel’s citizenship and entry law that would declare a new citizen’s allegiance to “a Jewish and democratic state.”

After the prime minister announced the push, but before Sunday’s Cabinet vote, Arab Knesset member Hanin Zoabi said that Israel is “discriminative in its policies and laws against all who are not Zionists.” Zoabi went on to say the law “not only discriminates between Jews and non Jews, it also discriminates between Zionist Jews and non Zionists Jews.”

Another Arab Knesset member Ahmed Tibi, from the Ra’am-Ta’al party, criticized the move as well, saying that “the values of Jewish and Democratic cannot be in the same definition because democracy is the equality of all the citizens.”

“But an ethnic definition as Jewish is the preference of the Jew over that of the Arab and therefore it fixates an inferior status to 20 percent of the population,” Tibi said.

(Read More: CNN)

US Embassy Concerns Grow in Yemen

A US embassy spokesperson in Sana'a Yemen tells Fox News they are "sincerely concerned" following the Al Qaeda attack on a British diplomatic convoy today. They "condemn the terror attack" which left one Briton and three Yemeni's injured.

A "warden message" is being issued advising American citizens to maintain "vigilance" during this period.

A diplomatic source in Sana'a tells Fox News the US embassy has been under a "heightened alert" since late summer for a terror attack. The source also describes the US embassy as the "number one hard target" for the terrorists.

The attack on the UK convoy occurred not far from the US embassy and near a five star hotel frequented by foreigners.

It is reported an LAW anti-tank rocket was used in the attack.

The target of today's attack was the Deputy UK Ambassador, Fiona Gibbs, who recently arrived in the country.

The outgoing Ambassador escaped uninjured after being targeted by a suicide bomber in April.

The US embassy was hit by a double suicide bomb attack in 2008

A French national was also shot and killed and a Briton injured by a Yemeni guard at an oil facility outside Sana'a. It is also being portrayed as an Al Qaeda attack.

Read more: http://liveshots.blogs.foxnews.com/2010/10/06/us-embassy-concerns-grow-in-yemen/#ixzz11gKDLVMN

Judge Bans Key Witness in First Terror Trial Moved to Civilian Courts, Cites Enhanced Interrogation

It is what everybody predicted would happen. When Attorney General Stedman Graham er, Eric Holder announced that some of the Gitmo terrorist trials would be switched from military tribunals to civilian courts, people warned that key evidence would now be thrown out because it was obtained by enhanced interrogation techniques such as water boarding. That’s exactly what happened to day in the trial of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani whose trial was moved into the civilian system last year. The terrorist Ghailani is charged with conspiring in the 1998 bombings of the United States Embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, that killed 224 people.

The witness who was banned from testifying, Hussein Abebe, says he sold TNT to Mr. Ghailani that was later used to blow up the United States Embassy in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The Judge agreed that the government learned of Mr. Abebe through Mr. Ghailani’s interrogation when he was being held in an overseas jail run by the Central Intelligence Agency.

According to Ghailani’s attorney, the terrorist underwent coercive interrogation and torture while in C.I.A. custody, and that any statements or evidence derived from them is tainted and inadmissible. The prosecution said Mr. Abebe’s decision to cooperate was voluntary and only remotely linked to Mr. Ghailani’s interrogation. “This is a giant witness for the government,” a prosecutor, Michael Farbiarz, told the judge last week, adding, “There’s nothing bigger than him.” Mr. Farbiarz cited Mr. Abebe’s testimony that Mr. Ghailani made repeated trips to buy “black-market explosives” from him, adding, “That’s done for not many reasons in this life.”

Judge Lewis Kaplan announced his decision today, blocking the government from calling their “Giant Witness”

“The court has not reached this conclusion lightly,” said U.S. District Judge Lewis A. Kaplan in Manhattan. “But the Constitution is the rock upon which our nation rests. We must follow it not only when it is convenient, but when fear and danger beckon in a different direction. To do less would diminish us and undermine the foundation upon which we stand.”

Jury selection had been expected to resume on Wednesday. However, the case will now resume on Oct. 12 to give prosecutors time to determine whether they want to appeal the judge’s decision.

This morning former terror trial prosecutor, Andrew McCarthy wrote about the case in the National Review, and foreshadowed today’s ruling:

The Obama administration has made Ghailani its test case to prove that the civilian criminal-justice system works perfectly well in wartime against enemy combatants — to show that we don’t need military commissions or other alternatives specially tailored to address the peculiarities of terrorism cases. The administration figured Ghailani was a safe bet. After all, the embassy-bombing case had already been successfully prosecuted once: In 2001, prior to 9/11, four jihadists were tried, convicted, and sentenced to life imprisonment (although the jury voted to spare the two death-penalty defendants).Yet, to prove its political point that there is no downside in vesting Ghailani — a Tanzanian national whose only connection to the United States is his decision to make war on it — with all the constitutional rights of an American citizen, the Justice Department has had to slash its case. DOJ is also finding that even more critical evidence may be suppressed by the trial judge. In short, the slam dunk has become a horse race, one the government could actually lose.

Nice Job President Obama and AG Holder! Your quest to appease the Muslim world and make nice to your progressive base by transferring the terror trials to the US may achieve the result we were all fearful of, terrorists being acquitted and sent out to kill again. Should we get the feared result, I suppose the President will do the one thing he has been consistently successful at, blaming President Bush.

New China UFO Sighting Closes Airport (VIDEO)

Flights were re-routed or forced to circle an airport for over an hour after Chinese air traffic controllers saw what they believed to be a UFO hovering over the runway.

The incident, which took place at about 8 p.m. on Sept. 11 at an airport in Baotou, is the eighth reported UFO sighting in China since June, according to AOL News. Back-to-back sightings in June alarmed Chinese residents.

As ABC reports:

The alert was triggered by bright lights in the sky that moved erratically, but reports claim that air traffic controllers at the Hohhot Air Traffic Management Bureau spotted the object on their radar. After about an hour, the object and the lights suddenly vanished and passenger jets were allowed to land.

While the others were dismissed as part of routine military exercises, the Chinese government has refused to comment on this sighting, according to The Sun.

The attack on public sector pensions

Lord Hutton of Furness has produced his interim report on public sector pensions. This is the important thing you need to grasp: the main reforms are proposed with a specific aim of squeezing revenue out of public sector workers so that the Treasury can pay off the bankers. This is not about fairness, much less about "gold-plated" public sector pensions. It is a simple raid on the future wages of the lowest paid workers for the benefit of the rich. Secondly: this transfer of wealth to the rich is part of an ideologically-driven class-motivated attack on the welfare state. We know the background. There is no urgent need to pay off the deficit. Most of the debt doesn't mature in less than three years, and the cost fo borrowing is still low for the UK. There is also no particular need to pay off the deficit by attacking the public sector. Higher taxes on those who bear most direct responsibility for this crisis could easily pay off the deficit. Alternatively, a redistribution and stimulus-based growth strategy would produce the revenues needed to pay it off. So, these are elective measures reflecting the class interests and the ideological priorities of those driving the policies. And Cameron has made it clear that he intends to make these cuts permanent.

Some context. One of the most shameful things about the last government was the way they proceeded to attack the fundamentals of the pension system without ever consulting the public. In their last term especially, they planned a wide-ranging series of neoliberal reforms as the Blairites became impatient to make their mark in a lasting way. At bottom was New Labour's determination that the burden of pensions should shift from state provision through taxation to private sector provision, based on financialised packages. Peter Mandelson had been very impressed on a 1996 visit to Chile with the privatised pension system set up under Generel Pinochet. He in turn impressed the incoming Blair government with his findings. This aspect of New Labour thinking arose as private sector employers were attacking their own defined benefits and final salary pension schemes, as part of their drive to raise shareholder value and reduce the cost of employment. So, just as the private sector pensions system was falling to pieces, the government saw fit to attack state provision, and a tripartite consensus evolved on this issue. One of the few things restraining the government's blows was that pensioner poverty was a hot political issue. The government found this out to its cost when a political backlash engulfed it over a miserly 90p rise in state pensions in one budget. This was at a time when public sector spending was being deliberately slashed by the government, and the spending as a proportion of GDP sank well below the levels of the Major administration. They could get away with deep, though temporary, cuts in spending on health and education, but on pensions they were forced to retreat. So, the conundrum for the government was how to reduce the amount of state provision in a politically acceptable way. In its last term, with Blairites like James Purnell and John Hutton itching to make their mark, New Labour contracted the services of the princes of capital, such as Lord Turner and David Freud to fundamentally reform the whole benefits and pensions system, with the aim of qualitatively reducing state provision. This involved, among other things, raising the retirement age to levels over and above the age to which many working class people can expect to live.

Now, amid a uniquely devastating global crisis, the government has sought to shift the burden of the crisis from the banks to the Treasury, and ultimately onto the working class. A gold-plated government of millionaires has appointed a gold-plated New Labour Lord, John Hutton, to draft a report justifying attacks on what the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg calls "gold-plated public sector pensions". The result so far is this, Hutton's interim report pending a final report in two years' time. In a nutshell, Lord Hutton - former work and pensions secretary under New Labour - advises the government to increase employee contributions to the pensions, as the most effective short-term way of raising funds for the Treasury. This is specifically cast in terms of raising revenue in the short-term. The government is also urged to increase the retirement age in the public sector, though this is more of a long-term measure as it is considered an unlikely candidate for the immediate fiscal gains the Treasury seeks, and reflects the wider commitment to reducing the scope of the welfare state. Bear in mind that new entrants to most public sector occupations already retire at the age of 65, with the only exceptions being the police, the fire service and the armed forces, who retire at 60 due to the physical demanding nature of their jobs. Hutton also advises the government to look for ways to end the final salary pension system, which he judges is "inherently unfair". Instead, he urges shifting to a pension scheme based on some sort of "career average".

To believe that public sector pensions are "gold-plated", you'd have to be living most of your waking life in the comment pages of the Daily Telegraph. The average public sector pension is worth £7800. In local government, it's £4000, dropping to £2800 for women. For this pension, public sector workers contribute over 6% of their wages throughout their working lives. Hutton, in his report, acknowledges as much, dismissing talk of gold-plated pensions as "mistaken" since for "the most part", these pensions are "fairly modest by any standard". If they seem generous to some, he says, it is because the private sector pensions system has been so degraded over the years. But given such an acknowledgement, the standard of justification required for an attack on such "modest" provision becomes all the higher.

Hutton's approach in that regard is standard Blairite 'modernising' talk. People live to a grand old age these days, we are informed, and the buggers cost more to feed and clothe. Some people, Hutton points out, spend 40% of their lives in retirement. But this is not the case for the vast majority of public sector workers, who are among the lowest paid skilled workers in our society, and many of whom work until the physical nature of their jobs means they can no longer do it. They do not have the option to work longer. Meanwhile, some of the features of some public sector pensions go back years, and years. For example, the final salary principle has been in place in the civil service, in different ways, since 1859 - though the system has been through numerous reforms since then, the basic principle has remained intact. Which obviously means that there must be smething wrong with it. No surprises there - Hutton was once part of a government that thought it high time to abolish rights established in the Magna Carta, such was its modernising zeal.

Further, Hutton notes, provision in the state sector is increasing overall, while defined benefit pension schemes in the private sector are diminishing in value. Thus: "around 85 per cent of public sector employees have some form of employer sponsored pension provision compared to around 35 per cent in the private sector." By the standard perverse logic of 'modernising' reforms, the failure of the private sector is used as an excuse to attack the public sector. Last example: Hutton argues that there is an "imbalance" between employer and employee contributions to pension schemes. It's a vacuous claim. What "balance" is appropriate is surely a value judgment, and the implied assumption that there is an "imbalance" which favours employees is not an explanation in itself - rather it demands explanation. For the sake of context, recent reforms have already capped employer contributions to public sector pensions schemes, leaving employees to foot the bill for any shortfall.

Overall, the claim is that changing demographics mean that a system with characteristics developed in the 19th and 20th centuries is no longer suited to the task, and must be reformed in order to reduce the cost of pensions to the taxpayer. But the cost of public sector pensions is not huge. The value of the main unfunded public sector schemes is approximately 1.7% of GDP, and it is projected by the National Audit Office not to have increased at all in 50 years time. The net public sector pension cost, defined as the difference between present employee contributions and present costs, is much lower, closer to 0.3% of GDP this fiscal year. It can vary depending on the rate of inflation, but it is still eminently affordable. According to Diane Abbott, who has been an active participant in debates emerging from the Work and Pensions Committee's proposed reforms, the Treasury spends twice as much on tax relief for private pensions as it does on public sector pensions. Repeat and underline: raising employee contributions is just a way of squeezing revenue out of public sector workers to enable the government to pay off the bankers. It has nothing to do with fairness, or affordability.

The unions are warning of anger, as well they might. Unison is "adamant" that replacing final salary pension schemes with career-based schemes will sharply reduce the incomes of public sector workers in their retirement, which is in fact the purpose of such reforms. Unite points out that this attack on pensions will hit women the hardest, as 70% of public sector workers are women. The unions uniformly point out that public sector workers are already living with pay freezes and de facto pay cuts. Changes to the calculation of pensions, using the Retail Price Index on inflation instead of the Consumer Price Index, has already wiped billions of the value of public sector pensions.

Noticeably, however, the tone of the responses from Brendan Barber and Dave Prentiss, and the GMB, including a cautious welcome of some of the interim report's points, suggests that the larger unions are breathing a sigh of relief that it wasn't much worse, and are themselves unlikely to mobilise over this issue. If anything they want to use Hutton's report as leverage to resist some of the more aggressive Tory plans. In truth, as anyone looking at the right-wing press coverage could detect instantly, the Tories didn't need Hutton to endorse the most slash-and-burn approach. It endorses the basic idea that public sector pensions are unaffordable, which is crap, and encourages the government to undertake both short and long-term reforms to dramatically reduce the cost to the Treasury of those pensions. That's all they needed. Unless the unions do begin to mobilise far more quickly than they have been ready to so far, the Tories will use every opportunity to cut deeper than anyone expected.

Pakistan NATO Attacks: Dozens More Fuel Tankers Destroyed, Driver Killed

Pakistani fire fighters gather next to burning oil tankers after militants attacked a terminal in Quetta, Pakistan on Wednesday, Oct. 6, 2010. Gunmen in southwestern Pakistan torched a dozen tankers carrying fuel to NATO troops and killed a driver Wednesday, police said, the latest strike against supply convoys heading for Afghanistan since Pakistan shut a key border crossing last week. (AP Photo/Arshad Butt)

ISLAMABAD — The U.S. apologized Wednesday for a recent helicopter attack that killed two Pakistani soldiers at an outpost near the Afghan border, saying American pilots mistook the soldiers for insurgents they were pursuing.

The apology, which came after a joint investigation, could pave the way for Pakistan to reopen a key border crossing that NATO uses to ship goods into landlocked Afghanistan. Pakistan closed the crossing to NATO supply convoys in apparent reaction to the Sept. 30 incident.

Suspected militants have taken advantage of the impasse to launch attacks against stranded or rerouted trucks, including two Wednesday where gunmen torched at least 55 fuel tankers and killed a driver.

"We extend our deepest apology to Pakistan and the families of the Frontier Scouts who were killed and injured," said the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, Anne Patterson.

Pakistan initially reported that three soldiers were killed and three wounded in the attack, but one of the soldiers who was critically injured and initially reported dead ended up surviving, said Maj. Fazlur Rehman, the spokesman for the Frontier Corps.

Pakistani soldiers fired at the two U.S. helicopters prior to the attack, a move the investigation team said was likely meant to notify the aircraft of their presence after they passed into Pakistani airspace several times.

"We believe the Pakistani border guard was simply firing warning shots after hearing the nearby engagement and hearing the helicopters flying nearby," said U.S. Air Force Brig. Gen. Tim Zadalis, NATO's director for air plans in Afghanistan who led the investigation. "This tragic event could have been avoided with better coalition force coordination with the Pakistan military."

The head of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, Gen. David Petraeus, also expressed his condolences, saying in a statement that "we deeply regret this tragic loss of life and will continue to work with the Pakistan military and government to ensure this doesn't happen again."

Pakistan moved swiftly after the attack to close the Torkham border crossing that connects northwestern Pakistan with Afghanistan through the famed Khyber Pass. The closure has left hundreds of trucks stranded alongside the country's highways and bottlenecked traffic heading to the one route into Afghanistan from the south that has remained open.

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There have been seven attacks on NATO supply convoys since Pakistan closed Torkham, including those Wednesday.

NATO officials have insisted that neither the attacks nor the border closure have caused supply problems for NATO troops since hundreds of trucks still cross into Afghanistan each day through the Chaman crossing in southwestern Pakistan and via Central Asian states.

But reopening Torkham is definitely a priority for NATO because it is the main crossing in Pakistan, the country through which NATO ships the majority of its supplies into Afghanistan. Other routes are more expensive and logistically difficult.

Both U.S. and Pakistani officials have predicted Torkham would reopen soon, and the apologies issued Wednesday could provide Pakistan with a face-saving way to back down.

Reopening the border could reduce the frequency with which militants have attacked NATO supply convoys in recent days, although such attacks occurred regularly even before Torkham was closed.

The first attack Wednesday came early in the morning when an unidentified number of gunmen in two vehicles attacked trucks as they sat in the parking lot of a roadside hotel on the outskirts of Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province. They were making their way to the Chaman crossing.

One driver was killed in the attack and at least 25 trucks were destroyed by fire that spread quickly from vehicle to vehicle, senior police official Hamid Shakil said.

On Wednesday night, suspected militants armed with assault rifles opened fire on oil tankers parked along the road in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province as they were making their way to Torkham. At least 30 tankers were engulfed in flames, said local police officer Nisar Khan. It was unclear if there were any casualties.

Of the seven attacks on convoys bringing supplies in from the port city of Karachi since the Torkham closure, five were on trucks heading to that crossing and two were on their way to Chaman.

The convoys bring fuel, military vehicles, spare parts, clothing and other non-lethal supplies for foreign troops in Afghanistan.

It was unclear who was behind the latest attacks, but the Pakistani Taliban have claimed responsibility for similar assaults on NATO supplies.

The helicopter attack and the border closure have exposed the frequent strains in the alliance between Pakistan and the United States. But Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell downplayed the possibility of any lasting effects.

"There are incidents which create misunderstandings, there are setbacks, but that does not mean the relationship – this crucial relationship to us – is in any way derailed," Morrell said Tuesday.

Even if the border is reopened, underlying tensions will remain in the U.S.-Pakistan relationship, especially over Pakistan's unwillingness to go after Afghan Taliban militants on its territory with whom it has strong historical ties and who generally focus their attacks on Western troops, not Pakistani targets.

The U.S. has responded by dramatically increasing the number of CIA drone strikes in Pakistan's tribal belt, including two Wednesday that killed 11 militants in North Waziristan, according to Pakistani intelligence officials speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

In the first attack, a U.S. drone fired two missiles at a house near Miran Shah, the main town in North Waziristan, killing six militants, said the officials.

About two hours later, missiles struck a house near Mir Ali, another major town in North Waziristan, killing five militants, said the officials.

The U.S. does not publicly acknowledge the drone strikes in Pakistan, but U.S. officials have said privately that they have killed several senior Taliban and al-Qaida commanders.

___

Associated Press writers Riaz Khan in Peshawar, Ishtiaq Mahsud in Dera Ismail Khan, Rasool Dawar in Islamabad, Abdul Sattar in Quetta and Anne Gearan in Washington contributed to this report.