U.S. drone aircraft kills six in Pakistan
IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency
Islamabad, May 3,IRNA - At least six people were killed and many others injured in a fresh U.S. drone attack in the restive North Waziristan on Monday, tribesmen in the region said.
According to local tribesmen, unmanned Predator aircraft fired several missiles at a vehicle at Machi Khel area, killing six people at the scene.
Locals said spy planes were hovering over the region and making low flights before the attack. They said they could not approach the attack site for relief activities for some time as the U.S always target the people who want to pull bodies out of the rubble or to shift injured to hospital.
U.S. drone attacks routinely target Taliban and Al-Qaeda commanders in Pakistan’s lawless tribal regions along the Afghanistan border.
Although Pakistan publicly opposes the attacks, saying they violate 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 830 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 U.S. has stepped up strikes in 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.
It is the second U.S drone strike in the same region in eight days.
On April 25th, the drone strike at a house in Mir Ali area of North Waziristan had killed five people.
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