US drone kills seven militants in NW Pakistan: officials

A US drone strike killed seven militants at a compound in Pakistan's tribal North Waziristan region Sunday, security officials said.

Activists protest at Union Station in Washington DC.
Activists protest at Union Station in Washington DC.

The compound was located by a road in Shewa district about 40 kilometres (25 miles) northeast of the region's main town of Miranshah.

The drone fired four missiles at the compound and two vehicles parked outside were also destroyed, an intelligence official in Miranshah told AFP.

"At least seven militants were killed and three wounded," a security official in Peshawar told AFP, raising his earlier casualty estimate.

The casualties were confirmed by two other intelligence officials in Miranshah.

The strike is the latest in a series of US operations in the region that are believed to have targeted Taliban and Al-Qaeda extremists plotting attacks in Europe.

Security officials said last week that a drone strike had killed five German militants.

The United States has massively ramped up its drone campaign in Pakistan's lawless northwestern tribal region on the Afghan border, amid intelligence claims of a Mumbai-style terror plot to attack European cities. The plot was reportedly caught in its early planning stages.

Pakistani authorities have reported 27 drone attacks that have killed more than 150 people since September 3. The area is a hub for homegrown and foreign militants fighting in Afghanistan.

The missile attacks have also raised tensions with Islamabad over US dissatisfaction at Pakistani efforts to combat the Islamist threat.

Pakistan has said there is no justification for the drone strikes, describing them as "counter-productive" and a violation of the country's sovereignty.

The United States does not as a rule confirm drone attacks, but its military and the Central Intelligence Agency operating in Afghanistan are the only forces that deploy the pilotless aircraft in the region.

Officials in Washington say previous drone strikes have killed a number of high-value targets, including the former Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud.

Taliban militants have launched a string of attacks on NATO supply vehicles in Pakistan in the past week to avenge the drone strikes.

Pakistani Taliban on Sunday claimed responsibility for the latest attack on a NATO supply convoy in the southwest and vowed these would continue until the US drone strikes stopped.

Gunmen on Saturday torched at least 29 oil tankers in southwest Pakistan, the sixth attack in just over a week on vehicles carrying supplies for the 152,000-strong foreign forces fighting in Afghanistan.

Pakistani officials said on Sunday they had reopened the main land route for NATO supplies to Afghanistan and officials at the Torkham border in the northwest Khyber region, closed in a response to a NATO helicopter incursion.

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