U.S. & World

DAMADOLA, Pakistan (CBS) ― Pakistan on Saturday condemned a purported CIA airstrike on a border village that officials said unsuccessfully targeted al Qaeda's No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri, but did not directly blame the United States for the attack, which left at least 17 people dead.

Pakistani information officials told CBS News that the CIA had acted on false information in launching the attack early Friday in the northwestern village of Damadola, near the Afghan border.

U.S. intelligence officials acknowledged a CIA-operated Predator drone aircraft carried out the missile strike in the Bajur tribal region of northwestern Pakistan and that al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's top lieutenant, could have been at a compound targeted in the attack or about to arrive.

Like bin Laden, al-Zawahiri, is believed to have been hiding along the rugged Pakistan-Afghan frontier since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on America. He has a $25 million bounty on his head.

Pakistan filed a formal protest Saturday with the U.S. Embassy. The country's information minister said the "incident" in Damadola was "highly condemnable." He did not directly blame the U.S. for the attack but told reporters the government, a key U.S. ally in its war against terrorism, wanted "to assure the people we will not allow such incidents to reoccur."

An AP reporter who visited Damadola about 12 hours after the attack saw three destroyed houses, hundreds of yards apart. Villagers had buried at least 15 people, including women and children, and were digging for more bodies in the rubble.

Villagers denied hosting al-Zawahiri or any other al Qaeda or Taliban figure, and said all the dead were local people.

On Saturday, more than 8,000 tribesmen staged a peaceful protest in a nearby town to condemn the airstrike, which one speaker described as "open terrorism." Police dispersed a smaller protest in another town using tear gas. A mob torched the office of a U.S.-backed aid agency near Damadola, residents said.

A Pakistani intelligence official told AP the remains of some bodies had "quickly been removed" from Damadola after the strike and DNA tests were being conducted, but would not say by whom. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to media.

Shah Zaman, a tribesman whose home was destroyed but survived the attack, denied hosting any terrorists and said no officials had taken bodies away.

"I don't know him (al-Zawahiri). He was not at my home. No foreigner was at my home when the planes came and dropped bombs," he said.

Local lawmaker Sahibzada Haroon ur Rashid, who visited Damadola soon after the attack, said the dead had already been buried, and claimed no foreigners were among them. They came from a local family of jewelers, he said, adding that none of the bodies had been burnt or charred beyond recognition that would make identification difficult.

There was no confirmation from either Islamabad or Washington on the reports about the airstrike, but a Pakistani intelligence official said that the CIA had told Pakistani agents that they had targeted al-Zawahiri.

Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, the spokesman for President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, only said the explosions in the village, which lies about 125 miles northwest of the capital, Islamabad, were under investigation. He gave no details.

Asked who had carried out the attack, Information Minister Ahmed said Pakistan's Foreign Ministry would "let you know."

In Washington, Pentagon, State Department, National Security Council and intelligence officials all said they had no information on the reports concerning al-Zawahiri.

In Afghanistan, U.S. military spokesman Lt. Mike Cody referred questions on the matter to the Pentagon. The U.S. Embassy in Pakistan referred questions to the Pakistan government.

Doctors told AP that at least 17 people died in the attack, but residents of Damadola, a Pashtun tribal hamlet on a hillside about four miles from the Afghan border, said more than 30 had died.

They recounted hearing aircraft flying overhead before bombs or missiles crashed through the village, blasts that were felt miles away.

Speaking as he dug through the cement rubble of his home, Zaman said he heard planes at around 2:40 a.m. and then eight explosions. He said planes had been flying over the village for the last three or four days.

At another destroyed house, Sami Ullah, a 17-year-old student, said 24 of his family members were killed and vowed he would "seek justice from God."

The attack was the latest in a series of strikes on the Pakistan side of the border with Afghanistan, unexplained by authorities but widely suspected to have targeted terror suspects or Islamic militants.

Pakistan lodged a protest Monday with the U.S. military in Afghanistan after a reported U.S. air strike killed eight people in the North Waziristan tribal region last Saturday. Pakistan says it does not allow U.S. forces to cross the border in pursuit of Taliban and al Qaeda fighters.

In Afghanistan, Mohammed Hasan, deputy police chief of Kunar province, which is opposite Bajur, said U.S. forces had for weeks been patrolling in airplanes along the rugged border, which he described as a hide-out for Arab terrorists.

Al-Zawahiri, an Egyptian, has appeared regularly over the Internet and in Arab media, encouraging Muslims to attack Americans and U.S. interests worldwide.

Like bin Laden, his whereabouts had been unknown since the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan began following the terror attacks on New York and Washington on Sept. 11, 2001, which killed nearly 3,000 people.

(© 2006 CBS Worldwide Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)