| Deaths in Pakistan drone strike | |||
At least 18 people in Pakistan, including suspected al-Qaeda fighters, have been killed in a missile attack thought to have been carried out by an unmanned US drone. Security officials said the raid targeted a Taliban camp in northwest Pakistan on Thursday. Two missiles fired by a drone hit the alleged camp in the tribal area of Kurram, one of seven semi-autonomous regions near Pakistan's border with Afghanistan. A senior security official, speaking anonymously, said: "Twelve militants, mainly Afghan Taliban, were killed in the missile strike at their training centre in Kurram. Dozens are wounded. "The training centre was run by local Taliban commander Fazal Saeed and training was under way at the time of the strike." The Taliban has sealed off the area and was retrieving bodies from the rubble of the building, officials said. Kurram is a known hub for fighters loyal to Baitullah Mehsud, Pakistan's most wanted man, and Sirauddin Haqqani, de facto commander of Taliban-aligned groups on the border. Security officials had earlier said that at least seven fighters had been killed in the attack, including "foreigners" - using a term adopted to mean al-Qaeda operatives. Repeated strikes More than 30 such missile attacks have been carried out since August 2008, one month before Asif Ali Zardari was sworn into office as president of Pakistan, killing more than 320 people. The US military does not confirm drone attacks, but it and the Central Intelligence Agency operating in Afghanistan are the only forces to deploy drones in the region. It was the fifth missile attack blamed on unmanned US aircraft since Barack Obama, the US president, came to power, dashing the Pakistani public's hopes that the new administration would abandon the policy. Obama says fighters in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where US troops are battling the Taliban, pose a grave threat. Islamabad has repeatedly protested to Washington that drones violate its territorial sovereignty and deepen resentment among the 160 million people of the nuclear-armed Islamic nation.
SOURCE: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/03/200931218510270742.html | |||
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