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Bush ‘approved’ Pakistan attacks
President George W Bush has authorised US military raids against militants inside Pakistan without prior approval from Islamabad, the BBC has learned.
An unnamed senior Pentagon official told the BBC the classified order had been made within the past two months.
On Wednesday, the US’s top military commander said the US was shifting its strategy in Afghanistan to include raids across the border into Pakistan.
Pakistan has said it will not allow foreign forces onto its territory.
Meanwhile, security officials in Pakistan say they have killed up to 100 militants on the Afghan border. There is no confirmation.
The US say that Pakistan’s north-west tribal areas are being used as “safe havens” by militants preparing attacks on Afghanistan.
But Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff, Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, said there was “no question of any agreement or understanding with the coalition forces whereby they are allowed to conduct operations on our side of the border”.
‘Common insurgency’
A senior Pentagon official told the BBC that Mr Bush gave his approval this summer for cross-border raids into Pakistan.
The order includes the use of conventional ground troops crossing the border into Pakistan to pursue militants there.
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The Pakistani Army has been given orders to retaliate against any unilateral strike by the Afghanistan-based US troops inside the country.
Army Spokesman Maj Gen Athar Abbas confirmed the orders in a brief interview with Geo News on late Thursday night.
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