U.S. missiles hit Pakistan village, kill 8 militants

By PIR ZUBAIR SHAH New York Times

Oct. 23, 2008, 10:41PM

ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN —

Missiles fired by remotely piloted American aircraft slammed into a Pakistani village near the Afghan border on Thursday, killing at least eight people in an attack that appeared aimed at a prominent Taliban commander, residents and a militant fighter said.

The dead were all militant fighters, according to residents of Dande Darpakhel. But the missiles did not strike a compound owned by Jalaluddin Haqqani, a Taliban operator who has close links to al-Qaida and is an associate of Osama bin Laden. Haqqani was the presumed target of the attack.

The United States has accused Haqqani of organizing some of the most serious recent attacks in Afghanistan against American and NATO forces and of masterminding a failed assassination attempt against Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

Since September, American-led forces in Afghanistan have frequently struck targets in the region with missiles and, on at least one occasion, with commandos, trying to stem cross-border attacks on coalition forces in Afghanistan.

The Pakistani residents and the militant fighter, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the aircraft fired four missiles at 1:15 a.m.

They said the missiles struck a religious school and compound owned by Pir Mohammad Roohani, (not the targeted compound of Jalaluddin Haqqani) who was in Afghanistan at the time of the attack.

One missile hit a room in the compound where the militants were sleeping, the residents said.

The strike happened in the lawless North Waziristan area along the border with Afghanistan.

The same village was hit by missiles in September, and 23 people — mostly relatives (weren't these civilians?) of Haqqani — were killed. There were no reports of casualties among the Haqqani family in the latest attack.