16 Pakistanis killed in US drone attack in North Waziristan

14 Pakistanis killed in drone attack in North Waziristan

The Daily News, Pakistan, Thursday, March 11, 2010

Editor's Note:

There's no independent verification that the victims are really Taliban fighters. In many previous cases, victims were civilians.

* Intelligence official says not clear if any high value target was hit

PESHAWAR/MIRANSHAH:

At least 14 alleged Taliban were reportedly killed in a suspected US drone attack in North Waziristran on Wednesday night.

Sources based in Miranshah said that in the first attack, a US drone fired four missile on a vehicle in Macha Madakhel at Dada Khel tehsil, killing six terrorists. Another vehicle that was en route to help the victims also came under the attack of a US drone. Resultantly, eight more Taliban were killed. Law enforcement agencies cordoned off the area and started investigations, APP reported

Not sure: An intelligence official confirmed the strikes and casualties. He said it was not immediately clear whether any high value target was present in the area, said to be the stronghold of local militant commander Hafiz Gul Bahadur.

US drone attacks routinely target Taliban and al Qaeda commanders in the country’s tribal belt.

A US drone strike in Miranshah in February killed Muhammad Haqqani, a brother of al Qaeda-linked warlord Sirajuddin Haqqani, whose network is fighting against US and local forces in neighbouring Afghanistan.

More recently, three missiles fired by US drone aircraft killed five militants in Miranshah on Monday.

The covert US drone war against al Qaeda and Taliban leaders has focused increasingly on North Waziristan, a bastion of multiple militant groups, since a December 30 suicide attack killed seven CIA employees in Afghanistan, AFP reported. haji mujtaba/app

US missiles kill up to 16 in Pakistan: officials

  AFP, Thursday, March 11, 2010

Two successive bombing raids by unmanned spy planes hit a building and vehicles late Wednesday in North Waziristan, near Pakistan's border with Afghanistan.

The missile strikes come with Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Islamabad for talks with Pakistani leaders on tackling Taliban fighters on both sides of the border.

"The death toll in the drone strikes has risen to 16 as four more bodies were found," a senior security official in the region told AFP.

Seven Taliban fighters were killed in the first strike targeting a compound and a nearby vehicle in Mizar Madakhel village, about 50 kilometres (30 miles) west of Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan.

Nine more fighters died in a second strike which hit shortly after as Taliban fighters pulled bodies from the rubble of the first bombing raid.

Another official put the overall death toll at 14, but said US drones were still hovering over the area while witnesses said militants had cordoned off the bombing site and were scouring the rubble for more bodies.

It was the deadliest US missile strike since February 2, when a swarm of drones fired about 18 missiles on North Waziristan, killing 31 people.