Islamabad, Jan 06: The government dispatched defense officials to Pakistan's border with Afghanistan and told the US military not to enter its territory without permission, the defense minister said today, a week after a borderland skirmish that involved American troops.

At the same time, though, Rao Sikandar Iqbal pledged continuing cooperation with American forces in fighting terrorism and in the effort to apprehend fleeing al-Qaeda and Taliban fugitives in eastern Afghanistan. Iqbal said his defense officials met representatives of the US military yesterday at the remote region of Angore Adda in the rugged borderland of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province.

"The US troops have been clearly told that next time there will be no violation from their sides, and that they will not cross our border from Afghanistan," Iqbal told a news agency. On December 29, a Pakistani border guard shot and wounded an American soldier in the head in eastern Afghanistan's Paktika province, just a few hundred metres from Pakistan's border.

The shooting prompted US forces to call in an airstrike on a building where the guard was believed hiding.

The US military said the building it hit was inside Afghanistan. Islamabad says one bomb landed on its side; it is still examining the matter. Bureau Report