US Missile Strike Kills 20 Militants In North Waziristan

Friday, October 3, 2008 at 10:38 pm Under Pakistan Breaking news

MIRANSHAH:

A US missile destroyed a house in the tribal region bordering Afghanistan Friday, killing around 20 people, many allegedly foreign nationals.

“Our reports suggest that around 20 (allegedly Taliban fighters) were killed when a missile hit a house in Mohammad Khel village in North Waziristan. Most were foreigners,” a senior Pakistani security official said, according to a foreign news agency.

A local intelligence official said that 21 were killed including 16 (alleged) foreigners, adding that most of those were Arabs. The house belonged to two Afghan refugees settled in the area, the official said.

Officials had no details about the identity of those killed.

There was no immediate confirmation from the Pakistani military or from the US-led coalition in Afghanistan.

The Pakistani military separately denied local reports that US helicopters and fighter jets from Afghanistan killed several people, including two women and a child, in another part of North Waziristan earlier on Friday.

Local officials said US air power hit a village lying just inside Pakistan’s territory after US troops came under fire in Afghanistan’s Khost province. But the army said the incident happened in Afghanistan itself.

Suspected US missile strikes kill 3 in Pakistan

3. October 2008, 10:06
By ISHTIAQ MASHUD, Associated Press Writer
DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan –

Two suspected U.S. missile strikes close to the border with Afghanistan killed three people Friday, Pakistani intelligence officials said.

The strikes took place in two villages in North Waziristan, according to the officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

A Pakistani military spokesman said he was not immediately able to comment on the suspected strikes.

American forces recently ramped up cross-border operations against Taliban and al-Qaida fighters in the Pakistan's border zone with Afghanistan — a region considered a likely hiding place for Osama bin Laden.

Earlier this week, officials said that a suspected U.S. missile strike on a Taliban commander's home in Pakistan killed six people late Tuesday.

Pakistan says the attacks often result in civilian casualties. American officials complain that Pakistan was unwilling or unable to act against the Taliban fighters.

Taliban fighters in the border region are blamed for rising attacks on U.S. troops in Afghanistan and attacks within Pakistan, including the Sept. 20 truck bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad that killed more than 50 people.

The U.N. reacted to that blast on Thursday by ordering the children of its international staff out of the city — putting it on a par with trouble spots such as Kabul, Afghanistan and Mogadishu, Somalia.

It insisted the move was temporary and would not affect its operations.

Britain announced Wednesday it was repatriating its diplomats' children and other countries may follow suit. Pakistan has long been a non-family posting for U.S. diplomatic staff.