ISLAMABAD – Pakistan's claim that the U.S. hit an Afghan refugee camp in a drone strike is "false," a U.S. spokesman said Thursday, as tensions between the uneasy allies ratchet higher over Islamabad's alleged support for militants. The apparent strike took place roughly 50 km (30 miles) inside Pakistani territory on Wednesday, according to local authorities. It killed a midlevel commander from the Taliban-affiliated Haqqani network, officials and a source close to the Islamist group have told AFP. The incident comes just weeks after Washington froze nearly $2 billion in aid to Pakistan over its alleged support for militants, a move that had sparked speculation that the U.S. could resume drone strikes or launch operations along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan. Local officials have told AFP that the predawn strike took place more than 50 km (30 miles) from the Afghan border, in the village of Mamuzai in Kurram agency, one of the districts in the country's semi-autonomous tribal region.

One day after an American drone strike killed a leader of the militant Haqqani network in northwestern Pakistan, United States officials on Thursday rejected a claim by Pakistan that the strike had targeted an Afghan refugee camp. There were also conflicting accounts of the location of the drone strike and the number of people killed. A statement by Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Wednesday condemned the strike and maintained that it had "targeted an Afghan refugee camp in Kurram Agency" -- an assertion that the United States rejected on Thursday. "The claim in an M.F.A. statement yesterday that U.S. forces struck an Afghan refugee camp in Kurram Agency yesterday is false," said Richard W. Snelsire, the United States Embassy spokesman in Islamabad, Pakistan's capital. American officials said that there were no Afghan refugee camps in Kurram, a remote tribal region straddling the border with Afghanistan, where they said Wednesday's drone strike had taken place.