QUETTA: An American surveillance drone crashed in southwestern Pakistan on Thursday near a paramilitary base close to the Afghan border, Pakistani officials said.

“It was an American surveillance unmanned aerial vehicle. It crashed on this side of the border,”    a security official in the area told AFP.

He said the drone had come down -- apparently due to a technical fault -- some two kilometres inside Pakistani territory in Chaman town in insurgency-hit Baluchistan province, but had caused no damage.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the wreckage of the aircraft had been recovered.

An official from Pakistan's paramilitary Frontier Corps in Quetta, the province's main town, confirmed the incident.

“Some spare parts and a camera were also found with it,” that official said. “It crashed near a Frontier Corps fort in Chaman but caused no damage.”

Such crashes of US aircraft are rare in Pakistan but one of the country's own surveillance drones crashed in the city of Karachi in July after hitting a bird on a routine flight.