ISLAMABAD, Feb 25: Washington promised Islamabad on Saturday it would avoid violating Pakistani borders when pursuing terror suspects, an official said, weeks after a US missile strike targeting an Al Qaeda leader killed 13 villagers, including children.

The reported pledge came one week before US President George W. Bush was to visit Pakistan, which was outraged by the Jan 13 attack on the village along the Afghan-Pakistan border. The attack put tremendous public pressure on the government, a key US ally in the war on terror, to get assurances that it would never happen again.

A Pakistani official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press that Pakistan pressed the US on the border issue at a Tripartite Commission meeting on Saturday of senior officials from America, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

“They assured us that they will exercise maximum restraint and avoid any border violations in the future,” said the official, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorised to speak to the media. US military spokesman Col James Yonts would neither deny nor confirm the reported promise.

“Cooperation on both sides of the border remains good,” Mr Yonts said in an e-mailed response to the AP from Kabul. “Afghanistan and Pakistan understand the seriousness of the threat. Measures are in place to conduct coordinated operations as needed.”

Washington has provided few details about the US missile strike that hit homes in the Pakistani tribal region of Bajaur near the Afghan border, killing 13 civilians.

Several missiles were reportedly fired by unmanned predator drones flying from Afghanistan. Pakistan has maintained it was not given advance word of the airstrike.

Pakistani officials say the strike targeted Al Qaeda’s No 2 Ayman al Zawahri, who was not present at the time, but some of his deputies were believed to be killed. This 15th meeting of the Tripartite Commission was held in Bagram, Afghanistan, on Saturday.

Delegates included Lt-Gen Sher M. Karimi, Chief of Operations of the Afghan National Army Major-General Muhammad Yousaf, Director-General of Military Operations of the Pakistan Army and Lt-Gen Kari W. Eikenberry, Commander, Combined Forces Command Afghanistan.

Nato-ISAF again participated in the capacity of an observer.

Local Khowst officials, led by provincial Governor Merajoddin Pathan, also participated in the Tripartite Commission meeting by video teleconference.

Discussions also focused on the challenges and accomplishments of governance and reconstruction in the region adjacent to the Afghanistan/Pakistan border.—Agencies