Suspected US drones fired missiles at a house and a vehicle in a militant-infested area of northwestern country near the Afghan border on Wednesday, killing seven people, intelligence officials said. The strikes were nearly 12 hours apart in the North Waziristan tribal area.
They were the latest attacks in an intensifying campaign by the US to use unmanned aircraft in country to wage war against militants who regularly target foreign troops in Afghanistan. The first strike occurred at about 3:30 am when a drone fired a missile at a house in the Spin Wam area, killing three people, said the intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to talk to the media.
The second attack took place around 2:45 pm when a drone fired a missile at a vehicle in the Datta Khel area, killing four suspected foreign militants, the officials said. Two were Arab and two were Western, they said. No additional information about the suspected militants was provided. But many US drone strikes in recent months have targeted fighters linked to the Haqqani network, which military officials have declared the most dangerous militant group in Afghanistan.
The US refuses to publicly acknowledge that it carries out drone attacks in Pakistan, but officials have said privately that the covert CIA-run programme has killed several high-level Taliban and al Qaida commanders. Pakistani officials often publicly criticise the strikes as a violation of the country's sovereignty, but the government is widely believed to provide intelligence information for the attacks and allow drones to take off from a base inside country.