(Reuters) - NATO's chief expressed regret on Monday for the deaths of Pakistani soldiers last week and said he hoped Pakistan's border would reopen for NATO supplies to Afghanistan as soon as possible. Angered by repeated attacks by NATO helicopters on militant targets within its borders, Pakistan blocked one of the supply routes for NATO troops in Afghanistan after a strike killed three Pakistani soldiers in the western Kurram region.
Analysts and Western officials said Pakistan's closure of the border for a few days would not seriously impact the war effort in Afghanistan, but it would create political tension that Pakistan could exploit.
"I expressed my regret for the incident last week in which Pakistani soldiers lost their lives," Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said after meeting Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi in Brussels.
"I expressed my hope the border will be open for supplies as soon as possible."
The apology came after gunmen attacked a convoy of trucks taking goods to Western forces in Afghanistan on the outskirts of the Pakistani capital, killing three guards.
Pakistani Taliban militants claimed responsibility.
Hours later, suspected militants attacked trawlers carrying supplies for NATO through the southwestern province of Baluchistan, killing one man, police said.
Pakistan has officially said the border has been closed for security reasons and the Taliban threat of more attacks will likely prolong the closure of the vital supply route -- now in its fifth day -- and further strain ties with ally Washington, which has long demanded Pakistan crack down on militants.
About half of all non-lethal supplies for western forces in land-locked Afghanistan pass through Pakistan, giving Pakistan considerable leverage over the United States, which needs Pakistan for help in containing the insurgency in Afghanistan.
"Efforts are underway to resolve this issue, but there is a lot of anger in Pakistan about the border incursion," a senior Pakistani government official told Reuters.
ISAF spokesman Major Joel Harper told Reuters in Kabul that the border closure wouldn't impact the mission, but that the supply lines are "an important element of the Pakistani economy. It's important to our logistics stocks."
The closures would force more supplies through NATO's northern supply route through Russia and the central Asian republics, he said.
"NATO authorities have all along anticipated disruptions in the supply chain and have been stockpiling supplies in advance," said Kamran Bokhari, South Asia director at STRATFOR global intelligence.
Andrew Exum, a fellow with the Center for a New American Security and former adviser on Gen. Stanley McChrystal's assessment team in Afghanistan, said the closures mattered little tactically.
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