Islamabad, September 30: A suspected US missile strike targeted Taliban fighters on the move in Pakistan’s North Waziristan tribal region Wednesday and killed at least nine militants, including foreigners, an intelligence official said.
Pilotless aircraft attacked and destroyed two vehicles carrying the Taliban in Naurak village near Mir Ali, one of the main towns of the district located close to the Afghan frontier.
“Nine militants died at the scene and six more were wounded, some critically,” an intelligence official in the area said on condition of anonymity. “Almost all were Uzbek militants.”
According to the official, the insurgents were travelling to a Taliban zone considered a stronghold of loyalists of Afghan militant commander Jalaluddin Haqqani.
The strike was the third in the Waziristan region during the last 24 hours, as a pair of airstrikes believed to be carried out by US drones on Tuesday killed at least 13 militants, with foreigners among them.
Locals use the term “foreigners” for al-Qaeda linked fighters of Arab or Central Asian origin.
Pakistan’s ungoverned tribal region is littered with safe havens for al-Qaeda and Taliban militants, who fled to the rugged lands after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan following the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.
Islamabad is under growing Western pressure to take decisive action against the insurgents hiding in its tribal territory, with the US intensifying drone attacks on selected targets.
Pakistan officially criticizes such airstrikes and says they fuel sentiment against the government and the Americans, thus proving counterproductive to efforts being made to fight militancy.
–Agencies