The US military in Afghanistan has denied making an incursion across the border into Pakistan in pursuit of al-Qaeda militants last week. The Americans accept that their troops strayed into the Pakistani part of a border village early in May but deny repeating the action on Thursday. Pakistan has warned that any US incursions are \"totally unacceptable\". The two allies are waging separate campaigns against al-Qaeda militants operating along the remote border. US troops did enter the village of Lowara Mandi, which straddles the border between the Afghan province of Khost and the Pakistani territory of North Waziristan, on 5 May. But spokesman Lt Col Tucker Mansager said on Monday there had been no incursions across the poorly marked frontier since then. \"We have researched these allegations thoroughly and can report without a doubt that coalition forces are conducting operations on the Afghan side of the border only,\" he said in the Afghan capital Kabul. Pakistan, he added, was a \"valued partner in the global war on terrorism\" and the US respected its \"sovereign rights... as a nation\". Amid Pakistani reports of the latest incursion, Pakistani Foreign Minister Khurshid Kasuri warned on Sunday that incursions could provoke hostile tribesmen in the area and result in \"a very big incident\". (BBC)