US drone strike kills 11 in Pakistan
IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency
Islamabad, May 9, IRNA -- A US drone aircraft fired missiles at a house in Pakistan’s North Waziriristan tribal region and killed at least 11 people on Sunday, tribesmen in the region said.
The drone fired two missiles at Datta Khel, an area near Afghan border, and destroyed the house, they said. Three people were injured and later pulled out of the rubble by the people.
It is the second US strike on the region in a week.
On May 3, US unmanned Predator aircraft killed six people in North Waziristan. US authorities claimed that drone aircraft would target militants based on intelligence passed on by their agents in the area.
Militants alleged that Pakistani authorities also provided information for drone attacks.
Locals said spy planes were hovering over the region and making low flights before the Sunday’s attack. They said they could not approach the attack site for relief activities for some time as the US always targeted people who wanted to pull bodies out of the rubble or to transfer the injured to hospital.
US drone attacks routinely targeted Taliban and Al-Qaeda commanders in Pakistan’s lawless tribal regions along the Afghanistan border.
Although Pakistan publicly opposed the attacks saying they violated its sovereignty and fuel anti-Americanism among the population, it is believed that it was sharing intelligence with the US about the insurgents and their hide-outs.
More than 900 people have been killed in more than 90 US strikes in Pakistan since August 2008, with a surge in the past year as President Barack Obama has put Pakistan at the heart of his fight against Al-Qaeda.
The US has stepped up strikes on North Waziristan after Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud appeared in a video with Hammam Khalil Al-Balawi, the Jordanian suicide bomber who killed seven CIA operatives in a forward base in Afghanistan’s Khost province in December last year.
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End News / IRNA / News Code 1104791
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