US rejects Pak's claim of striking a refugee camp

Pakistan Army Spokesperson Maj Gen Asif Ghafoor said on Thursday that the January 24 drone strike near the tribal areas targetted an individual who had mixed with Afghan refugees.

In a tweet, the director general of the Inter-Services Public Relations stated that the strike in Spin Thall, Hangu District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa was not on any organised terrorists' sanctuary.

"Out of total 54 Afghan Refugees Camps/complexes in Pakistan, 43 are in KP with overlap in FATA," said a press release shared by ISPR.

It said that the incident validates Pakistan's stance that the remaining terrorists easily morph into Afghan refugees' camps/complexes.

"Thus their early and dignified return to Afghanistan is essential. Pakistan's brotherly hospitality to peaceful Afghan Refugees must not be exploited by the terrorists," the press release stated. Earlier, Foreign Office (FO) Spokesperson Dr Muhammad Faisal said that Pakistan sticks to its stance that the recent US drone strike targeted an Afghan refugee camp near Kurram Agency.

He was likely responding to a statement by the US Embassy earlier in the day which denied Pakistan's claim that the drone strike struck an Afghan refugee camp.

According to the embassy's spokesperson, "The claim in an MFA [Ministry of Foreign Affairs] statement yesterday that US forces struck an Afghan refugee camp in Kurram Agency yesterday is false."

Pakistan had condemned the drone strike conducted by coalition forces near Kurram Agency and called the unilateral action detrimental to the spirit of cooperation between the two countries in the fight against terrorism.The Foreign Ministry had stated that the strike had targeted an Afghan refugee camp. According to political administration sources in the area, two people including a commander of the Haqqani Network were killed in the drone strike close to the Orakzai and Kurram Agency border.

Meanwhile, US Embassy Spokesperson Rick Sinelsine has said that Pakistan's claim that United States forces struck an Afghan refugee camp in Kurram Agency is false. The spokesperson, however, did not confirm or deny whether the US army had carried out a drone attack in the region. Pakistan had condemned an alleged US drone strike deep inside its territory, saying: "Pakistan condemns a drone strike in Kurram Agency carried out by the Resolute Support Mission (RSM) this [Wednesday] morning, which targeted an Afghan refugee camp."

Islamabad had also warned Washington that such 'unilateral' steps would be detrimental to cooperation between the two countries in fight against terrorism. The Foreign Office (FO) on Thursday, responding to the US Embassy spokesperson's remarks, said that Pakistan stands by its initial statement. Area residents had told Dawn that an unmanned plane fired missiles on a mud house in Spin Thall near the garrison town of Thall, killing two men namely Ihsanullah and Nasir Mehmood. While locals said this was the third drone strike in Spin Thall in recent months, this was perhaps the first condemnation by the FO after the killing of Taliban chief Mullah Akhtar Mansour by a drone in Balochistan on May 22, 2016.

Relations with the US have been on a downslide since the announcement of the new South Asia and Afghanistan policy by US President Donald Trump. Last month, in a report on Afghanistan, Pentagon had stated that a range of tools including "unilateral steps in areas of divergence" would be employed to induce "required change" in Pakistan's stance.

The US also suspended security assistance for Pakistan as a follow-up to US President Donald Trump's New Year tweet accusing Islamabad of "lies and deceit".