KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) – Militants killed an America soldier and a Pakistani on Monday after a meeting held in a Pakistani frontier town seeking to calm the worst clashes in years between Afghan and Pakistani troops policing a border crossed daily by Taliban and Al Qaeda insurgents.

The attack at Teri Mangal produced a rare American casualty inside Pakistan, which is an American ally in the fight against terrorist groups but has uneasy relations with Afghanistan on how to deal with insurgents. Two American and four Pakistani soldiers were reported wounded, along with two civilians working for the NATO force in Afghanistan whose nationalities were not released.

An Afghan army brigade commander, General Akrem, who attended the meeting, told The Associated Press that gunmen fired on the participants – including approximately 15 Americans – as they left a school building after the talks.

“From three directions the gunmen opened fire – from the window of a classroom, from a building outside the school and from a hill,” said General Akrem, who like many Afghans uses only one name.

He said that Afghan soldiers at the meeting had been disarmed, but that the American soldiers had weapons and fired back. Pakistan does not allow American troops to operate from its soil but American military officials in Afghanistan often come for meetings to discuss cooperation.

Pakistani Major General Waheed Arshad blamed the attack on unidentified “miscreants” – a word often used by Pakistan’s government to describe Islamic militants, who are active in the country’s lawless border region.

The attack came the same day that a Taliban spokesman quoted supreme leader Mullah Omar as confirming the weekend killing of a top militant field commander. He said Omar also promised that the death of Mullah Dadullah would not undermine the Taliban insurgency.

Tensions have been running high between Afghanistan and Pakistan over controlling their 1,510-mile border and stemming the flow of Taliban and Al Qaeda militants who stage attacks inside Afghanistan.

Afghan leaders accuse the Pakistani government of harboring and helping supporters of the Taliban regime that was ousted by a U.S.-led offensive in late 2001. Pakistan denies that.

Monday’s meeting came in response to clashes between Afghan and Pakistani forces Sunday and Monday that killed 13 people and wounded 28 – the most serious skirmish in years. Afghan officials said the dead included seven Afghan children and six border policemen.

Rahmatullah Rahmat, the governor of Afghanistan’s Paktia province, which lies opposite Pakistan’s Kurram tribal region where Teri Mangal is located, said Pakistani artillery shells hit a school, a bazaar and a clinic in Afghanistan. Arshad denied Pakistani fire hit civilians.

General Mohammad Zahir Azimi, spokesman for the Afghan Defense Ministry, accused Pakistani troops of encroaching 1 to 2 miles inside Paktia province’s Jajai district. Arshad denied that happened and accused Afghan troops of “unprovoked” fire at about six Pakistani border posts.

The border clashes were likely to enflame the already acrimonious relations between the American allies – just two weeks after Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf and Afghan President Hamid Karzai met in Turkey and agreed again to work together in fighting extremist groups.

Meanwhile, the Taliban offered its first confirmation of the death of Dadullah – the feared one-legged field commander responsible for beheadings and suicide attacks that have come to characterize the increasingly fierce and ruthless insurgency in Afghanistan.

Dadullah died of gunshot wounds during an American-led operation over the weekend in the southern province of Helmand, Afghan authorities said.

Qari Yousef Ahmadi, who claims to speak for the Taliban, told AP that Omar and other militant leaders had sent condolences to the dead man’s family, while insisting Dadullah’s death “won’t create problems for the Taliban’s jihad.”

Mr. Ahmadi spoke by telephone from an undisclosed location and it was not possible to verify that he has access to Mr. Omar, whose whereabouts remain a mystery.

Mr. Ahmadi said Mr. Omar and his council of top Taliban leaders decided against naming an immediate replacement for Dadullah, who was the second top-tier Taliban field commander slain in six months. An American airstrike killed Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Osmani in southern Afghanistan in December.

Mr. Ahmadi said Mr. Omar had requested that the Afghan government return Dadullah’s body to his relatives for burial. “If they don’t, the consequences will be very bad,” he said.

Kandahar Governor Khalid said officials buried Dadullah in Kandahar city Monday in the presence of friends of the dead man but no family. He said he didn’t fear Mr. Omar’s threat.

“After this killing the Taliban has been weakened,” Mr. Khalid said. “And they’re going to become weaker and weaker every day.”

___

Associated Press writer Sadaqat Jan in Islamabad, Pakistan, contributed to this report.