'US missile' hits Pakistan village

A missile attack by a suspected US drone aircraft has destroyed a house in northwest Pakistan, killing at least four people, according to security officials.

Pakistani intelligence agency officials said on Wednesday that two missiles destroyed a house near the town of Mir Ali in North Waziristan.

No details about the dead were immediately available.

The reported strike occurred shortly after Pashtun tribesmen in the region on the border with Afghanistan shot at three drones over the village of Khusali Toorikhel.

"After the drones came under fire, a missile hit a house in the village. We have four dead now and another nine people were injured," a local security official told the AFP news agency.

Cross-border attacks

US forces are believed to have carried out at least seven missile attacks and a commando raid inside Pakistan in the past month.

The attacks have strained ties between the US and Pakistan, with Islamabad complaining that the raids are an infringement of its sovereignty and vowing to defend the border.

Last Thursday, Pakistani and US troops exchanged fire along the border after two US military helicopters came under fire, a US military spokesman said.

Although both sides later played down the incident later, Pakistan contended that the US helicopters had entered Pakistani territory while the United States argued they had not left Afghanistan.