PESHAWAR, Pakistan — A battle between U.S. forces and militants in eastern Afghanistan spilled across the border into Pakistan during the weekend, and witnesses said American rocket fire had killed five Pakistani tribesmen.
U.S. attack helicopters opened fire in Lawara Mandai, a Pakistani border town in the North Waziristan tribal region, as American forces pursued a dozen men who the U.S. military said had staged an ambush, officials and local residents said.
Although Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf quietly allows U.S. "hot pursuit" missions when guerrillas cross into his country from Afghanistan, opposition groups have denounced the American incursions as illegal attacks on Pakistani territory.
Reports of Pakistani dead are likely to intensify anger here, which is already running high after a Newsweek magazine report this month that interrogators at the U.S.-run prison for terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, had desecrated the Koran to rile inmates. The magazine has since retracted the story and apologized.
The U.S. military said its warplanes had killed 12 guerrillas after an attack on a coalition patrol east of Gayan, in Afghanistan's Paktika province, Saturday night.
"A group of four insurgents crossed the border into Afghanistan from Pakistan and attacked a U.S. patrol with small arms near the eastern city of Gayan," the U.S. military said in a statement.
"The unit returned fire and the insurgents fled the area, meeting up with a group of eight other individuals a short distance later. U.S. warplanes responded to the attack and, in coordination with soldiers on the ground, reported killing all 12 insurgents," the statement added.
U.S. forces did not confirm any deaths in Pakistan.
Pakistani witnesses said helicopters had attacked the border town with rockets, killing the tribesmen. At least 20 artillery shells fired by U.S.-led forces from Paktika province landed across the border near Lawara Mandai.
Pakistani army spokesman Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan said the U.S.-led troops had violated the country's territorial jurisdiction and fired several shells, which had hit near Lawara Mandai. Sultan said the coalition commanders on the Afghan side of the border had informed their Pakistani counterparts about the operation in the area.
"We don't know about the casualties," he said in a telephone interview Sunday from Islamabad, the Pakistani capital.
