In a further sign of deteriorating relations, Pakistan has ordered the US to leave a strategic airbase after 24 Pakistani soldiers were killed in a cross-border NATO air strike on two army posts.

The U.S. was told to evacuate its personnel from the Shamsi air base, from where CIA drones reportedly fly missions against terrorist elements along the border with Afghanistan and in the tribal areas.

Islamabad told the US to send its nationals to a remote air base in Balochistan, located about 300 kilometers away. American military personnel were given 15 days to clear their equipment out of the base.

A few days earlier, Pakistani government forces blocked routes used to transport supplies to U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan after the November 26 bombing.

American nationals boarded a U.S. aircraft under tight security, according to the PTI news agency. Local residents were ordered to stay in their homes while U.S. personnel were boarding the aircraft.

Shamsi air base was leased to the United Arab Emirates in 1992, although it has been reportedly used by CIA drones to target terrorists in the Pakistani tribal belt.

The Pakistani government has kicked out the U.S. Armed Forces at least twice before. Both times occurred during this year — the first when a CIA contractor gunned down two men in Lahore in January and the second was this past May when a Navy SEAL team assassinated international Al Qaeda terrorist chief Osama Bin Laden in a Pakistani military town.