NEW YORK, March 21: The commander of American forces in Afghanistan told the New York Times on Wednesday that they might cross the border into Pakistan to capture or kill Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters widely believed to have found sanctuary there.

In an interview with the paper at Bagram Airforce base in Afghanistan, Maj-Gen Franklin L. Hagenbeck of the 10th Mountain Division said chasing Al Qaeda and the Taliban into Pakistan would be a “last resort” carried out with the approval of Pakistani leaders.

Just 20 miles from the border with Pakistan, near Khost, American troops were attacked from several directions with mortars, small arms and rocket-propelled grenades for about an hour on Tuesday night, American military officials said. One soldier received a bullet wound in the left arm. “Our forces returned fire, and B-1’s and AC-130 gunships responded,” Gen John W. Rosa Jr, deputy director of current operations for the Joint Staff, said during a Pentagon news briefing.

Gen Hagenbeck told the paper that it was not clear whether the Americans were caught in fighting between Afghan factions or had come under attack from Taliban or Al Qaeda fighters.

American commanders have said fighting in Afghanistan may increase as the snows melt in spring. There also have been growing signs that American military leaders are thinking about broadening the field of action by moving against Taliban and Al Qaeda sanctuaries in Pakistan, where the government says it has deployed thousands of troops to seal the border.

Gen Hagenbeck suggested that sealing the border was not the Pakistani government’s highest priority. “I think Pakistan is more focused on tensions with India,” he told the paper.

Gen Hagenbeck declined to give specifics but said any eventual move into Pakistan would more likely be planned to thwart movements by the opposing side rather than to stage a frantic chase across national frontiers, the paper said.

“Hot pursuit would probably be my last resort,” Gen Hagenbeck said. “What we would try to do is anticipate any type of operations that would cause the enemy to go into Pakistan, and we would try to coordinate with the Pakistan government, and our ambassador in Pakistan, before we did any of those kinds of operations.”

The paper said that this week, Gen Tommy R. Franks, the commander of American forces in the region, asked Pakistan’s president, Gen Pervez Musharraf, to take part in joint military actions to apprehend Al Qaeda and Taliban forces moving back and forth across the border, according to a senior Pakistani government official.

Gen Musharraf made no decision on Gen Franks’ request, the senior Pakistani official said.

On Tuesday, George M. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, in testimony to the Senate Armed Forces Committee, said he needed “a lot more help” from countries where Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters may have fled. “There’s still many, many points of exit that people in small numbers can get out,” Mr Tenet said.

A decision by American forces to cross the border and strike Al Qaeda sanctuaries is politically explosive in Pakistan, where Gen Musharraf’s decision to side with America in its battle against militant is already drawing widespread opposition.

The Pakistani government has denied knowingly harbouring Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters, although its intelligence agencies routinely aided the Taliban until Gen Musharraf decided to break with the Afghan mullahs after the attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center on Sept 11 the paper said.