Islamabad, May 12: In a major assault, US drones fired 18 missiles to destroy a Taliban terrorist training camp in Pakistan’s troubled northwest, killing upto 14 militants.
The Hellfire missiles with multiple targeting heads struck makeshift houses, tents and moving cars across the wide area in the Doga region of north Waziristan where Taliban and Al-Qaeda are believed to have sanctuaries, officials were quoted by Pak television networks.
This was the third strike in the same semi-mountainous area and came just a week after US accused Pakistani Taliban of hatching the botched plot to bomb New York’s famous Times Square.
Faisal Shahzad, an American citizen of Pakistani origin held for the failed bombing, claimed he was trained in camps in Waziristan.
Local officials told TV networks that the training camp was run by a militant warlord Hafiz Gul Bahadur with close ties to Afghan Taliban.
Though, reports claimed that foreign terrorists were killed in the strike, there was no official word whether there was a high value target among the victims.
US has been targeting north Waziristan in a relentless campaign using the drones.
Almost all the 30 attacks in recent months have been in the region where American intelligence suspect that Haqqani network fighters as well as Al-Qaeda commanders are hiding.
—Agencies