The barrage was one of the most intense since the attacks
were stepped up more than two years ago in a bid to keep pressure on Al-Qaeda
and its allies. Most are believed to be fired from unmanned, remote-controlled
planes that can hover for hours above the area.
Also Thursday, separate explosions - one near the Afghan
border and another in the country's southwest - killed 13 people, officials
said, while Britain said a UK journalist had been released from months of
militant captivity close to the Afghan border.
US officials do not publicly acknowledge the missile
strikes but have said privately that they have killed several senior Taleban
and Al-Qaeda militants and scores of foot soldiers in a region largely out of
the control of the Pakistani state. Critics say innocents are also killed,
fueling support for the insurgency.
The latest attack took place before dawn on a house close
to a disused match factory a little more than a mile (three kilometers) west of
Miran Shah town, a hub for local and international militants in the North
Waziristan region, an intelligence official said. He spoke on condition of
anonymity in line with the policy of his agency. Five alleged militants were
killed, he said.
The three attacks Wednesday also took place in North
Waziristan, a lawless region home to Al-Qaeda leaders plotting attacks in the
West, insurgents battling foreign troops just across the border in Afghanistan
and extremists behind bombings in Pakistan. There have been at least four other
attacks over the last week.
Pakistani intelligence officials working from army bases
in North Waziristan have a network of spies who inform them of the attacks.
Sometimes journalists are able to speak by phone to villagers who witness them.
Pakistani security agencies are believed to cooperate with at least some of the
strikes, but there is very little independent reporting of them because the
region is so dangerous for outsiders.
The names of those killed are rarely released, and allegations
of civilian casualties are not publicly investigated.
The militants have stepped up their own attacks in
Pakistan in recent days, just as the army focuses on helping millions of
victims from the worst floods in the country's history. Four big bombs have
killed at least 135 people in less than a week.
On Thursday, 10 people were killed close to the Afghan
border in Kurram region when a roadside bomb hit the bus they were traveling
in, said local government official Noor Ahmed. It was unclear why - or whether
- the vehicle was targeted.
Another explosion took place outside the house of a
provincial minister in Quetta, the capital of the southwestern Baluchistan
province, killing three people, said city police chief Abid Hussain Nothkani.
He did not speculate on who might be responsible.
Also Thursday, the British High Commission said a
British-Pakistani filmmaker who was abducted by militants in March in the
Afghan border region had been released. It did not say when or how Asad Qureshi
had been freed. He was working on a film on militancy for the UK's Channel 4 TV
station when he was seized.
Pakistan's army has launched several offensives in the
northwest over the last two years, but has resisted moving into North
Waziristan despite US pressure. A major militant faction there, the Haqqani
network, is blamed for attacks against US troops in Afghanistan but has
refrained from striking inside Pakistan. Analysts believe the army views the
network, with which it has historical links, as an important tool to secure its
interests in Afghanistan once foreign troops withdraw.
