ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan’s military on Friday rejected as “baseless” a recent U.N. report that said Pakistani cross-border military operations killed nearly 500 civilians and wounded over 1,000 in neighboring Afghanistan between October and June.At a televised news conference, military spokesman Lt. Gen. Ahmad Sharif Chaudhry said Pakistan had targeted only hideouts and infrastructure used by the Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, during that period, and said those killed in the strikes were militants.He said the operations were carried out in self-defense to protect the lives of people in Pakistan.Chaudhry questioned recently released reports by the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, or UNAMA, and Amnesty International, saying they relied largely on accounts from Afghans despite what he described as restrictions on freedom of expression under Taliban rule.
He also accused Afghanistan’s Taliban government of sheltering militants responsible for attacks inside Pakistan and said international rights organizations had failed to document such violence.“These are double standards,” Chaudhry said, asking how many times rights groups had documented civilian casualties caused by U.S.-led coalition airstrikes during the war in Afghanistan.Chaudhry’s remarks came days after UNAMA, in a report on the human rights situation in Afghanistan, said it had documented 499 civilians killed and 1,216 wounded in fighting between Pakistan and Afghanistan despite international efforts to reduce tensions.
