"We confirm that the two missiles were fired from a drone which belongs to coalition forces deployed in Afghanistan," Pakistan's chief military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas told AFP, referring to Wednesday's strike.

"We have conveyed our protest and waiting for response by the coalition forces," Abbas added.

He said the attack killed 14 people but gave no further details on exactly who launched the strike. There is a US-led coalition in Afghanistan, and a separate NATO coalition.

Taliban spokesman Maulvi Omar on Thursday blamed the United States for carrying out the missile strike and vowed to avenge the attack.

A senior security official in Islamabad said two houses belonging to local Taliban militant leaders were the target of the attack, which destroyed the buildings.

Security officials told AFP Thursday at least 12 militants including some foreigners were among those killed.

The US military in Afghanistan was not immediately available for comment.

Suspected US missile attacks in the past have claimed the lives of several militants in Pakistan's volatile tribal belt.

A US Predator drone targeted Al-Qaeda's deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in the same area in 2006, killing several rebels but missing him.

Pakistani authorities on Friday found the body of a paramilitary soldier beheaded by Taliban insurgents in the tribal area targeted by Wednesday's strike.

A note left on the corpse said the Pakistani soldier had been killed in revenge for the missile attack in the Bajaur tribal district near the Afghan border.

The strike came as militants were negotiating a deal with the new Pakistani government, which came to power after the defeat of US ally President Pervez Musharraf's supporters in February elections.

The soldier was kidnapped overnight and his decapitated body dumped on the roadside outside the main town of Khar, local official Mowaz Khan said.

"This is our revenge for the US missile attack," the note signed by militant group Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, said.

Militants in the troubled semi-autonomous region have previously kidnapped and killed soldiers, officials and pro-government figures accused of working with the Americans, as part of a campaign to maintain their stronghold.

On Friday, around 100 students belonging to Islamic seminaries held a noisy demonstration in the central city of Multan and burned effigies of US President George W. Bush.

Protesters shouted "Americans are killers. Stop spilling the blood of Pakistanis," an AFP correspondent witnessed.

The fundamentalist Jamaat-i-Islami party said the missile attack was "outright terrorism" by US forces across the border.

"The lives of Pakistanis are being sacrificed for the sake of US aid," party chief Qazi Hussain Ahmad told a press conference in the eastern city of Lahore.

Hundreds of people rallied in the northwestern city of Peshawar after Friday's prayers in protest at the missile attack, witnesses said.

"The attack is an interference in the affairs of a sovereign country," local Islamist leader Sabir Hassain Awan told the rally.

Protestors carried placards and banners saying: "US is the biggest terrorist in the world. We condemn the attack in Bajaur."

Pakistan is a key ally of Washington in the "war on terror" and has deployed nearly 100,000 troops in the lawless tribal territory that the US says is a safe haven for Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants.

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