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US drone kills six militants in Pakistan

At least six militants were killed early Friday in a US drone attack on a compound in a Pakistani tribal town near the Afghan border, officials told AFP.

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Source: AFP


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"US drones fired five missiles on a compound in Spinwam, 40 kilometres (25 miles) northeast of Miranshah," said a local intelligence official. Miranshah is the main town in North Waziristan tribal district.

"Several people were also wounded in the attack, which took place at around 4:30 am (2030 GMT)," he added.

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A security official said separately that the drones fired five missiles at a house, killing five people.

American drones resumed missile attacks in Pakistan on April 13 for the first time in nearly a month, targeting fighters from the Al-Qaeda-linked Haqqani network near the Afghan border.

That was the first missile strike since March 17, when Pakistan's civilian and military leaders strongly protested over a US drone attack that killed 39 people, including civilians and police, in North Waziristan.

The Haqqani network is run by Afghan warlord Sirajuddin Haqqani and is based in North Waziristan.

The group has been blamed for some of the deadliest anti-US attacks in Afghanistan, including a suicide attack at a US base in Khost in 2009 that killed seven CIA operatives.

Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, on a trip to Islamabad this week accused Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency of having ties with the Afghan Taliban in Pakistan's northwest tribal belt.

The White House also criticised Pakistan's efforts to defeat the Taliban operating on the border in a report this month that was rejected by Islamabad.

The drone strikes inflame anti-US feeling, which is running high after the January killing of two Pakistani men in a busy Lahore street by a US embassy official later revealed to be working for the CIA.

Missile attacks doubled last year, with more than 100 drone strikes killing over 670 people in 2010 compared with 45 strikes that killed 420 in 2009, according to an AFP tally.

Most have been concentrated in North Waziristan, the most notorious Afghan Taliban and Al-Qaeda bastion in Pakistan, where the United States wants the Pakistan military to launch a ground offensive as soon as possible.

Security officials killed in Taliban attack

On the country's northwestern frontier, fourteen Pakistani security officials were killed on Thursday in a Taliban ambush on a checkpost being set up, a military official said.

"Fourteen people were killed including nine Frontier Corps soldiers and five police officials," the official said, adding that five or six other officials were wounded.

He said 200 armed militants had surrounded the post in the Kharkai area of Lower Dir, an area bordering Afghanistan's insurgent-hit Nuristan province.

Local police official Saleem Marwat told AFP that dozens of militants had seized control of the post on Thursday afternoon for the second time, after troops had managed to recapture their outpost overnight.

He put the death toll higher, saying 15 security officials had died.


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