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Did Pakistani soldiers shoot at U.S. helos?

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — U.S. helicopters flew into Pakistan’s militant-infested border region, but returned to Afghanistan after troops and tribesmen opened fire, intelligence officials have said.

The U.S. denied Monday there was any incursion but the reports threatened new rifts between Washington and its key anti-terror ally days after a truck bomb killed 53 people at a luxury hotel in Islamabad.

Nuclear-armed Pakistan is under growing U.S. pressure to act against al-Qaida and Taliban insurgents sheltering in its border region and blamed for rising attacks on coalition troops in Afghanistan as well as suicide bombings in Pakistan.

U.S. officials believe that al-Qaida’s leaders, including Osama bin Laden, may be hiding somewhere along the border.

Late Monday, Dubai-based TV channel Al-Arabiya said it had received a tape from a shadowy group calling itself “Fedayeen Al-Islam” — Arabic for “Islam commandos” — claiming responsibility for Saturday’s bombing at the Marriott hotel in Islamabad and calling on Pakistan to end cooperation with the United States.

A spate of suspected U.S. missile strikes into the lawless border region and a Sept. 3 raid by U.S. commandos said to have killed 15 people have highlighted U.S. impatience and angered many Pakistanis.

In the latest such alleged breach, two U.S. helicopters crossed one mile late Sunday into Pakistan in the Alwara Mandi area in North Waziristan, two intelligence officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Citing informants in the field, they said Pakistani troops and tribesmen responded with small arms fire, but it was not clear whether the bullets were aimed at the choppers or were warning shots.

The helicopters did not return fire and re-entered Afghan airspace without landing, the officials said.

That account was denied by Pentagon officials.

“There was no such incursion, there was no such event,” said Defense Department spokesman Col. Gary L. Keck.

Pakistan’s army said it had no information on the reported incursion across the poorly demarcated border.

Pakistan’s military chief and newly elected President Asif Ali Zardari have said the missile strikes and incursions were violations of the country’s sovereignty and only fueled extremist violence.

Zardari, who is expected to meet President Bush in New York on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly this week, reiterated that he welcomed U.S. intelligence help, but not its troops.

“Give us the intelligence and we will do the job,” he said in an interview with NBC television. “It’s better done by our forces than yours.”

Some 270 people were wounded in the Saturday night attack on the heavily guarded Marriott hotel in the capital Islamabad.

Interior Ministry chief Rehman Malik said Zardari, the prime minister and other top government officials were due to dine at the Marriott on Saturday, but they decided to change venue at the last minute.

However, a spokesman for the hotel owner denied this.

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Associated Press writers Zarar Khan and Asif Shahzad in Islamabad and Ishtiaq Mahsud in Dera Ismail Khan contributed to this report.