PESHAWAR, Pakistan - Pakistan said U.S. forces killed two of its soldiers near the Afghan border on Monday. The Pakistani military's public relations department said a strong protest had been lodged with U.S. authorities about the incident in which one Pakistani soldier was also wounded. It said in a statement U.S. forces fired on the Pakistani patrol at a border post in the tribal Waziristan region, some 160 miles southwest of the capital Islamabad. The shooting was the first such reported incident involving U.S. troops operating in Afghanistan. Pakistani forces and Afghan troops, assisted by a U.S.-led coalition, patrol their own sides of a border which runs along a remote tribal belt where Taliban fighters are believed to be hiding. U.S. Central Command said coalition forces on patrol near Orgun in Afghanistan's Paktika province were fired on by several individuals. "Coalition close air support was called in and responded to the enemy forces that were identified and fleeing toward the Pakistani border," it said in a statement. Pakistan was the main supporter of Afghanistan's former Taliban government until the September 11 attacks on the United States in 2001 when it chose to back U.S. efforts to drive the Taliban from power.