MIRANSHAH: A US drone strike targeting a vehicle in Pakistan's northwestern tribal belt on Monday killed at least four militants, local security officials said.

The unmanned aircraft fired two missiles, hitting a vehicle and a guest house of a local tribal elder in the Nurak area of North Waziristan, the Pakistani officials told AFP.

The area is within the notorious tribal badlands that Washington calls a global headquarters of Al-Qaeda.

“The unmanned aircraft fired two missiles at the vehicle and killed at least four militants in the strike,” one security official told AFP on the condition of anonymity as he is not authorised to speak to media.

“A guest house of a local tribal elder was also destroyed in the attack. However, it was not immediately known if there was anybody inside the guest house at the time of the attack,” he added.

Nurak area is 20 kilometers (12 miles) east of Miranshah, the main town of the district of North Waziristan, considered a militant stronghold.

The security official said initial reports suggested that a group of militants were travelling in the vehicle at the time of the attack.

Two other Pakistani intelligence officials confirmed the drone strike and death toll. Washington has called Pakistan's semi-autonomous northwest tribal region the global headquarters of Al-Qaeda, where Taliban and other Al-Qaeda-linked networks have rear bases from which they launch attacks on Nato forces in Afghanistan.