US drone strike kills 'six militants' in Pakistan

Sunday, September 12 12:13 pm

Hasbanullah Khan

A US missile strike on Sunday killed six (alleged Taliban fighters, referred to here as militants) in Pakistan's northwestern tribal belt near the Afghan border, as a suicide bomber died in a failed attack in Pakistan's Kashmir, officials said.

Pakistan has seen a sharp spike in US drone strikes in its rugged northwestern tribal region in recent days, amid a surge in suicide attacks and bombings across the country.

The Pakistani Taliban said Tuesday they would continue to target Pakistani security forces with suicide attacks in revenge for the US drone strikes.

"We are targeting Pakistani security forces because the government has allowed America to launch drone attacks on us," Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) spokesman Azam Tariq told AFP by telephone.

The latest drone attack hit Newey Adda village in the Datta Khel area near Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan tribal district, they said.

"A US drone fired two missiles. The target was a house used by militants as a compound. Six militants were killed," a senior security official in Peshawar told AFP, on condition of anonymity.

Another intelligence official in Miranshah confirmed the attack and the death toll, while a third intelligence official said there were two "guests" among the dead -- a term used for foreign militants.

Residents said six bodies had been dug from the rubble. Some injured people were taken to an unknown location for medical treatment.

Intelligence officials said there were two Arab fighters among the dead in the latest attack, while they were seeking more information about nationalities of the other militants killed.

Last week, a total of 24 militants were killed in four US drone strikes in 24 hours in the same tribal district.

Meanwhile, in two separate incidents Sunday, a man blew himself up in a botched suicide bombing in Pakistani-administered Kashmir, while police defused a timed device hidden in a shop in the region's main town.

The bomber's explosives went off as he was heading in a car to a target in Rawalakot district, 120 kilometres (74 miles) south of regional capital Muzaffarabad in the disputed Himalayan region on the border with India.

"The bomber was trying to hit some sensitive installations but the explosive went off before time, when he was on his way to hit his target," Chaudhry Raqeeb, the top administrative official in Rawalakot, told AFP.

He said the bomber was identified as a local resident.

Police defused a timed explosive device hidden in a pressure cooker in a shop after being tipped off by a local security guard in a congested market in Muzaffarabad.

Over 1,070 people have been killed in more than 125 drone strikes in Pakistan since August 2008, including a number of senior militants. However, the attacks fuel anti-American sentiment in the conservative Muslim country.