MIRAMSHAH: A US drone attack targeting a militant compound killed 10 insurgents in a troubled Pakistani tribal region on Wednesday, security officials said. Moreover, a BBCUrdu report quoted local authorities as saying that those killed in the strike were militants from the Haqqani network.
Two missiles hit the compound located in Tappi, 10 kilometres southeast of Miramshah, the main town in volatile North Waziristan near the Afghan border, a military official in Peshawar said.
“The attack triggered fire in the compound and 10 militants were killed,” the official told AFP on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media.
The dead included some foreign militants from Central Asia, another security official said but offered no details.
Some local residents in Tappi contacted by AFP said the militants announced over a mosque loudspeaker that funeral prayers for the dead will be held on Wednesday afternoon.
US officials say Pakistan's tribal belt provides sanctuary to Taliban fighting in Afghanistan, al Qaeda groups plotting attacks on the West, Pakistani Taliban who routinely bomb Pakistan and other foreign fighters.
But the missile strikes fuel widespread anti-American resentment, which is running especially high in Pakistan since US air strikes inadvertently, killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in November.
President Barack Obama last month confirmed for the first time that US drones have targeted Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants on Pakistani soil, a programme that has escalated under his administration.
In a chat with web users on Google+ and YouTube, Obama said on January 31 “a lot of these strikes have been in the FATA” — Pakistan's semi-autonomous Federally Administered Tribal Areas on the Afghan border.
According to an AFP tally, 45 US missile strikes were reported in Pakistan's tribal belt in 2009, 101 in 2010 and 64 in 2011.
The New America Foundation think tank in Washington says drone strikes in Pakistan have killed between 1,715 and 2,680 people in the past eight years.
The United States had until now refused to discuss the strikes publicly, but the program has dramatically increased as the Obama administration looks to withdraw all foreign combat troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.
US diplomatic cables leaked by WikiLeaks in late 2010 showed that Pakistan's civilian and military leaders privately supported US drone attacks, despite public condemnation in a country where the US alliance is hugely unpopular.
Islamabad is said to be reviewing its entire alliance with the United States and has kept its Afghan border closed to Nato supply convoys since the November strike.
It ordered US personnel to leave Shamsi air base in southwestern Pakistan, widely believed to have been a hub for the CIA drone program, and is thought likely to only reopen the Afghan border by exacting taxes on convoys.
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