NATO helicopter strike wounds two Pakistani soldiers

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Helicopters with the NATO force in Afghanistan wounded two Pakistani soldiers on Tuesday in a cross-border attack, local officials said, a day after the US tried to smooth a row over the killing of Osama bin Laden.

The two choppers opened fire on an army checkpoint in a restive tribal region in Pakistan's northwest after they were shot at, a Western military official in Kabul said.

The incident took place in Wacha Bibi, 50 kilometres (30 miles) west of Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan tribal district, local security officials said.

Washington considers the tribal belt a hotbed of Al-Qaeda, where Taliban and other militants plot attacks on US troops in Afghanistan and on Western targets.

"Two NATO helicopters committed the airspace violation and shelled an army checkpoint, injuring two soldiers," a senior local security official told AFP.

It comes after the United States launched a raid from Afghanistan on May 2 that killed Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden near Islamabad, in an attack that embarrassed and angered the Pakistani military and leadership.

It also comes just a day after US Senator John Kerry tried to repair relations with close ally Pakistan over bin Laden.

The western military official in Kabul, who requested not to be named, told AFP that the two helicopters were in Afghanistan 'in support of a forward operating base which was receiving fire from across the border of Pakistan'.

"Upon arrival at the scene, one of the helicopters received fire from across the border but didn't immediately return fire. Upon receiving fire a second time, the helicopter returned fire," he added.

"Later, ISAF (the US-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan) was notified (by Pakistani authorities) that two soldiers have been wounded," he said.

A spokesman for the international military alliance in Afghanistan said ISAF 'had reports of a possible incident. We are looking into it'.

"I can't confirm any of the details," Lieutenant-Colonel John L. Dorrian said.

The Pakistani military often accuses the NATO force in Afghanistan of violating Pakistan's air space in the hunt for Taliban who launch attacks before fleeing back across the border into Pakistan.

Pakistan temporarily shut the main land route for NATO supplies into Afghanistan last September after officials accused NATO of killing Pakistani troops in another cross-border attack.

The northwest region is being targeted by a record number of US drone strikes, the number of which has doubled in the last year, with more than 100 strikes killing over 670 people, according to an AFP tally.

The CIA says the covert programme has severely disrupted Al-Qaeda's leadership.

US drone strikes inflame anti-American feeling in Pakistan, which has worsened since a CIA contractor shot dead two Pakistani men in a busy Lahore street in January.

Two US drone strikes targeting a militant compound and a vehicle in North Waziristan on Monday killed at least nine people.