Suspected US missile kills 7 in Pakistan

MIRANSHAH: A suspected US missile strike killed up to seven alleged Al-Qaeda militants yesterday in an extremist stronghold of northwest Pakistan on the Afghan border, security officials said.

At least one vehicle was targeted in the strike in the Makeen area of the semi-autonomous tribal district of South Waziristan, where suspected Afghan and Pakistani Taleban militants are also holed up, local officials said. Initial reports said no high-value targets were believed to have died.

“A vehicle carrying six foreign militants was targeted in a single missile attack in Makeen area on the border between North and South Waziristan,” a senior security official told AFP on condition of anonymity. Pakistani officials use the word “foreigner” in reference to suspected Al-Qaeda fighters, but the precize identities of the dead was not confirmed.

“Two vehicles were hit in the strike, killing seven foreigners, including Uzbeks and Arabs,” a tribal security official, Haq Nawaz, told AFP. Other security officials in the northwest also put the death toll at seven and described the dead as “foreigners.”

Taleban quickly sealed off the scene to local residents who came to retrieve the bodies from the wreckage of two vehicles, a witness said.

“I saw the bodies myself. Some of them were completely charred and some were mutilated. I saw raw and bloody pieces of human flesh scattered around the site,” one resident told AFP, too frightened to give his name.

More than 35 such strikes have killed over 340 people since August 2008, shortly before President Asif Ali Zardari was elected, fanning hostility against the weak Pakistani government and the United States.

The US military as a rule does not confirm drone attacks but the armed forces and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operating in Afghanistan are the only forces that deploy drones in the region.

Yesterday’s attack was the seventh missile strike blamed in Pakistan on unmanned US aircraft since President Barack Obama came to power, dashing Pakistani hopes that his administration would abandon the policy.