Military officials said that the U.S. had used existing authorities negotiated with former President Pervez Musharraf to launch the raid. A senior military official said the volatile political situation in Pakistan had prevented any new negotiations for U.S. operations in the country.
The U.S. has long claimed the right to cross the border in "hot pursuit" of militants. Although the details are unclear, Wednesday's raid does not appear to be a case of hot pursuit.
A U.S. official suggested that the raid was conducted in response to border attacks, and that no high-ranking militant leader was captured or killed.
"There are targets other than formally designated high-value targets," the official said.
U.S. special operations forces have conducted raids before, including a 2006 mission in which the elite SEAL Team 6 went into Damadola to attack an Al Qaeda compound.
In a new report of an attack, villagers and officials in North Waziristan on Thursday reported a missile strike they said was carried out by a U.S. aircraft, an unmanned Predator drone. The blast was said to have killed eight people, five of them identified by local officials as "foreigners." That term is often used to describe Al Qaeda militants from Arab countries or Central Asia. It was not immediately known whether any was a high-profile insurgent figure.
U.S. intelligence officials said the raid Wednesday was along the border, not deep in tribal areas. Officials have noted that boundaries are in dispute in many locations.
White House and State Department spokesmen refused to discuss the incident and limited their remarks to calls for cooperation with the Pakistani government.
Adm. Michael G. Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and other senior U.S. military officials met with the Pakistani army chief of staff, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, last month aboard the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln. A senior Defense official said that there was no discussion of increased action by the United States. Instead the meeting focused on how the U.S. could help the Pakistani military increase its counterinsurgency efforts.
But a senior Pentagon official said that pushing for more aggressive action by the new Pakistani government also carries risks. Any Pakistani politician perceived to favor more U.S. latitude in Pakistan would suffer, the Pentagon official said.
"If you want to lose," the official said, "just be the one that gets caught talking to [Vice President Dick] Cheney about U.S. incursions across your border."
Saturday's presidential contest will be decided by members of parliament and the country's regional assemblies. Asif Ali Zardari, husband of slain former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and leader of her Pakistan People's Party, is the front-runner. Zardari is seen as relatively pro-American, and the recent raid could affect his candidacy.
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julian.barnes@latimes.com
greg.miller@latimes.com
Times staff writers Laura King in Istanbul, Turkey, and Peter Spiegel and Josh Meyer in Washington contributed to this report.
