MIRAMSHAH, Nov 29: Three people were killed and another was wounded in the US drone attack [briefly reported on Friday] on a residential compound near Miramshah in North Waziristan Agency after midnight on Thursday, sources said.

They said the persons killed were affiliated with the Miramshah-based Baddar Mansoor (BM) group, an offshoot of Punjabi Taliban. They hailed from Karachi.

Qari Aslam alias Yaseen, who was injured in the attack, was admitted to a hospital in the area.

The sources identified one of the dead as Ibrahim and said he was an Information Technology expert.

Two missiles were fired by the drone at the compound in Angher Village. The place belongs to a tribesman who had rented it out to the BM group. Reports from the area said the local people had retrieved three bodies and one wounded person from the damaged compound.

According to AFP, a senior security official, two suspected militants were killed and two others wounded.

The identities of those killed in the strike were not immediately known but they appeared to be of Central Asian origin, the official said.

Another security official in Miramshah said two Taliban militants were wounded in the attack and were identified as Punjabi Taliban.

“One of them, Aslam alias Yaseen, is linked with attacks on Pakistan army headquarters in Rawalpindi and another attack on (the) naval base in Karachi,” the security official said.

In May 2011, heavily armed militants besieged a naval airbase in Karachi, destroying two US-made P-3C Orion surveillance aircraft, an attack that took 17 hours to repel and left 10 military personnel dead.

This was the third drone strike during the current month. On Nov 1, a drone strike killed banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan chief Hakeemullah Mehsud near Miramshah.

The second attack was carried out in Thall area in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa on Nov 21 in which a seminary was targeted and six people, including three key commanders of the Haqqani group, were killed.