DAMADOLA, Pakistan(AFP) – Pakistani officials said yesterday that al-Qaeda deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was likely not killed in a US air strike, as Islamabad protested to Washington the deaths of 18 villagers in the attack.

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.

It is the second protest lodged by Pakistan with its key “war on terror” ally, the United States, for alleged incursion into the Asian nation’s 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. Senior Pakistani government and intelligence officials said Zawahiri was thought not to have been in the area at the time of the air strike.

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 today to protest against the deaths.

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.