Posted on 01/03/2010 9:30:51 AM PST by NormsRevenge
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) – US missiles flattened an extremist hideout in Pakistan's lawless tribal belt Sunday, killing two militants in the latest strike in a recent spike in drone attacks, Pakistani officials said.
The attack targeted a house in Mosakki village, about 25 kilometres (16 miles) east of Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan, and was the third suspected US missile attack in the tribal district in less than a week.
"There may have been an important figure hiding in the house," one Pakistani security official in Miranshah told AFP on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak about the sensitive strikes.
Suspected US drones have increasingly targeted North Waziristan, a bastion of Al-Qaeda fighters and the Haqqani network that attacks US and NATO troops fighting against the Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan.
Washington is putting increased pressure on Pakistan to tackle militants who use its soil to launch attacks in Afghanistan and American officials have said that the highly secretive drone programme has eliminated some top fighters.
"One US drone fired two missiles on a house.... The target was this house and a car parked outside was also destroyed," a senior Pakistani security official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
"Two militants were killed in the attack and we have reports that more militants were hiding there, so the death toll could rise," he added.
Local officials confirmed the attack and the death toll.
North Waziristan borders the Afghan province of Khost, where a suicide bomber killed seven CIA agents and an eighth American on a US base last week in the deadliest attack on the US spy agency since 1983.
Washington has put Pakistan at the heart of a new strategy ... saying success depends on dismantling militant sanctuaries along the porous border.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Map of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province. Pakistani authorities faced a furious backlash after a suicide strike on a volleyball match killed 101 people, as more violence killed a former provincial minister and seven others. (AFP/Graphic)
from the reuters article..
NEW MILITANT TACTICS
Such large-scale operations suggest Pakistani Taliban fighters are now focusing on bombing large crowds of civilians to inflict maximum casualties and spread terror in a bid to topple the pro-American government of President Asif Ali Zardari.
Bloodshed has intensified since July 2007 when the army cleared militants from a radical mosque in Islamabad.
Bingo! Start bombing mosques and you’ll get results! They’re raising the kids to become bombers and killers, so just take them ALL out!
The CIA is very pissed right now. I expect more reports like this one in coming weeks.
Amazing...only two in that wedding party!
hussein obama is a war criminal. Where are the muslim marches denouncing obama ?
muslims were very quick at rioting around the world when President George W Bush was in power.
It seems to me, hussein obama is allowed to commit war crime against people of his religion.
We need to see muslims descending in the streets shouting death to hussein obama, death to the traitor.
I am not against these drone attacks , so dont get me wrong.
This particular drone killed two people. Two bad guys supposedly. That’s good too.
What I have a problem with is, if instead of a drone attack this house was attacked by Seals the Seals would be on trial for murder if they killed them, or for slapping them if they didnt.
Where is the justice in that?. We can kill anyone we like with a drone or a rocket or a bomb, but shame on any GI or seal who pop’s one of the terrorist sonsabi*ches face to face.
Don’t tell me they’ve given up Mirandizing these people or providing an all-expenses paid media circus in downtown Manhattan.
Somebody’s gonna get yelled at.
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