PESHAWAR: Suspected US drones fired missiles at a house and a vehicle in a militant-infested area of northwestern Pakistan near the Afghan border Wednesday, killing seven people, intelligence officials said.
The strikes were nearly 12 hours apart in the North Waziristan tribal area. They were the latest attacks in an intensifying campaign by the US to use unmanned aircraft in Pakistan to wage war against militants.
There have now been at least 19 suspected US missile strikes in Pakistan this month, many of them in North Waziristan. There were 21 such attacks in September, nearly double the previous monthly record.
The first strike occurred at about 3:30 a.m. when a drone fired a missile at a house in the Spin Wam area, killing three people, said the intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
The second attack took place around 2:45 p.m. when a drone fired a missile at a vehicle in the Datta Khel area, killing four suspected foreign militants, the officials said. Two were Arab and two were Western, they said.
No additional information about the suspected militants was provided. But many US drone strikes in recent months have targeted fighters linked to the Haqqani network, which military officials have declared the most dangerous militant group in Afghanistan.
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