PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- A battle between U.S. forces and insurgents in eastern Afghanistan spilled across the border into Pakistan during the weekend, and witnesses said U.S. rocket fire killed five Pakistani tribesmen.

U.S. attack helicopters opened fire in Lawara Mandai, a Pakistani border town in the North Waziristan tribal region, as U.S. forces pursued insurgents following what the U.S. military called an ambush by guerrillas, officials and residents said.

Although Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf quietly allows U.S. "hot pursuit" missions when guerrillas cross from Afghanistan into Pakistan, opposition groups have denounced the incursions as illegal attacks on sovereign Pakistani territory.

Reports of Pakistani dead are likely to intensify anger in Pakistan, which is already running high following a Newsweek magazine report earlier this month that U.S. soldiers at the Guantanamo Bay prison for terrorism suspects desecrated the Quran to rile inmates. The magazine has since retracted the story and apologized.

The U.S. military said its warplanes killed 12 insurgents who had attacked a coalition patrol east of Gayan, in the Paktika province, Saturday night. "A group of four insurgents crossed the border into Afghanistan from Pakistan and attacked a U.S. patrol with small arms near the eastern city of Gayan," the U.S. military said in a statement.

An injured U.S. soldier received on-site medical treatment during the attack and returned to duty.

U.S. forces did not confirm any deaths on Pakistan's side of the border.

In an interview on CNN's "Late Edition" yesterday, Afghan President Hamid Karzai suggested that it was time for Afghanistan to make more decisions about the U.S. military's role in his country.

Describing the cooperation between the two countries as "a partnership that [was] very, very successful" in overthrowing the Taliban and bringing liberation to his nation, Karzai noted that relationship had changed.

"Now, we are in a different phase of this struggle," he said. "The Afghan people have gone to elections, they have a constitution, they have elected a government. They are expecting much more ownership by the Afghan government and Afghanistan."

Karzai, who will meet with President Bush this week, also urged that any Americans who mistreated prisoners be punished.

"This is simply, simply not acceptable," Karzai said of reports of brutality by U.S. interrogators against prisoners held at the air base in Bagram, Afghanistan. "We are angry about this. We want justice. We want the people responsible for this sort of brutal behavior punished and tried and made public."

Karzai rejected complaints that Afghanistan's efforts to eradicate the production of opium had been unsuccessful, saying, "we have done our job" in reducing the poppy crop. He said any failure in that mission was the responsibility of agencies funded by the international community.

"Now the international community must come and provide alternative livelihood to the Afghan people, which they have not done so far. Let us stop this blame game," he said.

Karzai was responding to an article in yesterday's New York Times, quoting a cable from the U.S. Embassy in Kabul to the State Department as saying that Afghan efforts to eradicate the opium poppies had been ineffective and accusing Karzai of weak leadership in that area.