US drone strike kills four in Pakistan
Pakistan : A US drone attack targeting a militant compound killed
four insurgents in a troubled Pakistani tribal region early yesterday,
security officials said.
In the second drone strike in about 24 hours, two missiles hit the
compound located in Miranshah, the main town in volatile North
Waziristan near the Afghan border, a security official said. “A US drone
fired two missiles at a compound used by militants in Miranshah and four
militants have been killed,” the official said.
The strike and death toll were confirmed by intelligence sources.
It followed a drone strike on Wednesday on a compound in Tappi, 10
kilometres (six miles) southeast of Miranshah, which security officials
said killed 10 insurgents. US officials say Pakistan's tribal belt
provides sanctuary to Taliban fighting in Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda groups
plotting attacks on the West, Pakistani Taliban who routinely bomb
Pakistan and other foreign fighters.
But the missile attacks fuel widespread anti-American resentment,
which is running especially high in Pakistan since US air strikes
inadvertently killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in November.
President Barack Obama last month confirmed for the first time that
US drones have targeted Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants on Pakistani
soil, a programme that has escalated under his administration. In a chat
with web users on Google+ and YouTube, Obama said on January 31 that “a
lot of these strikes have been in the FATA” -- Pakistan's
semi-autonomous Federally Administered Tribal Areas on the Afghan
border.
According to an AFP tally, 45 US missile strikes were reported in
Pakistan's tribal belt in 2009, 101 in 2010 and 64 in 2011.
The New America Foundation think-tank in Washington says drone
strikes in Pakistan have killed between 1,715 and 2,680 people in the
past eight years.
The United States had until now refused to discuss the strikes
publicly, but the programme has dramatically increased as the Obama
administration looks to withdraw all foreign combat troops from
Afghanistan by the end of 2014. AFP
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