The foreign ministry said it had summoned the US ambassador to receive a protest while Information Minister Sheikh Rashid condemned Friday's missile raid in a remote tribal area.

Police also used teargas to disperse protesters after a mob chanting anti-American slogans burned down a US-funded aid agency office near the site of the attack, witnesses said.

"Foreign Secretary Riaz Khan handed over a formal protest to the US ambassador at the foreign ministry this evening," foreign office spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam told AFP.

It is the second protest lodged by Pakistan with its key "war on terror" ally the United States for alleged incursion into its tribal region bordering Afghanistan this month.

Rashid told a news conference the government had "no information about Al-Zawahiri" following Friday's "highly condemnable" attack in Damadola, a village in the Bajur tribal agency.

"Things are being investigated, and let the investigation first be completed," he added.

Senior Pakistani government and intelligence officials said Zawahiri was thought not to have been in the area at the time of the air strike.

"As far as our investigations are concerned reports about Zawahiri being killed in the attack are not true," one top official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

"Our agencies have carried out initial ground checks and, combined with intelligence from the area, there is no indication about Zawahiri's presence in the area at the time of the incident or before."

Villagers in Damadola said they heard aircraft or helicopters before three explosions rocked the village, and insisted that the only victims were local people.

"We were asleep when the first missile hit another house. We came out but my three children were buried under debris in a second explosion," said Mohammed Khan, 35. His children all died.

"The US cannot do this without Pakistan's support. We are leaving it to God to give us justice."

In Khar, which is the main town in Bajur agency and close to Damadola village, an estimated 5,000 people gathered to protest the killings.

Some demonstrators set fire to the offices of Associated Development Construction, a non-governmental organisation funded by the US Agency for International Development, an official at the aid group said.

Police later fired tear gas shells to disperse the mob after the crowd headed towards a music and video cassette market, while security forces fired two shots in the air, the AFP reporter said.

Pakistan's biggest Islamist party, Jamaat-e-Islami, called for a nationwide strike on Sunday to protest against the deaths.

US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) sources said earlier they had unconfirmed indications that a key target, possibly Osama bin Laden's Egyptian number two and chief ideologue, died in a raid by a US Predator drone in Pakistan.

Citing US defense sources, NBC television said the strike had targeted Zawahiri, 55.

The US Defense Department denied that the US military had carried out any attacks in the area. "There is no reason to believe the US military is conducting operations there," said Lieutenant Colonel Todd Vician.

Pakistan forbids military operations by foreign forces in its territory, although the CIA is known to conduct operations along the Afghan border in the hunt for Osama bin Laden and his deputies.

US and Pakistani officials believe tribesmen may have sheltered them after a US-led operation overthrew Afghanistan's pro-Al-Qaeda Taliban regime in late 2001, and Pakistan has pushed 70,000 troops into the area.

Pakistani forces surrounded a compound in the tribal area in 2004 suspecting that Zawahiri was inside, but he was never found.

An eye surgeon, Zawahiri has become Al-Qaeda's most senior spokesman in videos released in recent months as bin Laden has remained out of the public eye.

Zawahiri appeared in a new video released last week, calling on the United States to withdraw from Iraq, leading some analysts to speculate that he was now the group's effective leader.

The United States has been offering a 25-million-dollar reward for Zawahiri since the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington. After the attacks, he was seen in video tapes with bin Laden.

related report

Not Clear If Zawahiri Hit
Washington (AFP) Jan 15 - It is not yet clear whether the deadly air strike aimed at Al-Qaeda's deputy leader, which killed 18 people, hit its target, The Washington Post reported Sunday.

In Pakistan, Pakistani officials said earlier indications from US intelligence sources that a key lieutenant of Osama bin Laden, possibly his number two Ayman al-Zawahiri, may have died in Friday's missile raid were "not true".

Yet "in Washington, US intelligence sources said it was too early to know whether the strike had killed Zawahiri, 54, an Egyptian physician who is al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's top aide," the Post said.

The paper quoted an unidentified source as saying: "the outcome of this doesn't seem decided."

In addition "US officials defended the strike, saying it was the right course of action based on timely intelligence about Zawahiri's whereabouts early Friday. Zawahiri had been under surveillance by the CIA for two weeks, security sources said," according to the Post.

"US military sources said Pakistan's intelligence service had been heavily involved in the attack," the Post report said adding: "Senior Pakistani officials would not confirm involvement in the strike but acknowledged regular intelligence cooperation with the United States."

"The intelligence sharing is on an almost daily basis," the Post quoted a senior Pakistani intelligence official as saying. The official said the cooperation included sharing of both human and electronic intelligence sources, the Post said.

Pakistan's foreign ministry said it had summoned US Ambassador Ryan Crocker on Saturday and handed over a formal protest about the incident.

The US Defense Department denied that the US military had carried out any attacks in the area.

Pakistan forbids military operations by foreign forces in its territory.

But US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) sources said Saturday they had unconfirmed indications that a key target, possibly bin Laden's Egyptian deputy and chief ideologue, died in a raid by a US Predator drone in Pakistan.

Citing US defense sources, US television network NBC said the strike had targeted the 55-year-old Zawahiri.

But senior Pakistani government and intelligence officials said Zawahiri was thought not to have been in the area at the time of the air strike.

The CIA is known to conduct operations along the Afghan border in the hunt for bin Laden and his deputies, thought to have fled Afghanistan when US-led forces overthrew the hardline Taliban regime in late 2001.

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