Suspected US drone, suicide bomber strike Pakistan

[David]

AP


MIRAN SHAH, Pakistan – A suspected U.S. drone fired two missiles Saturday at an alleged militant hide-out in northwestern Pakistan, leaving 13 people dead in a volatile area near the Afghan border where a suicide bomber killed at least two civilians, officials said.

The U.S. is suspected of carrying out more than three dozen drone strikes over the past year in Pakistan near the Afghan border, where militants often launch attacks against U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan. The drone attacks have caused tension with the Pakistani government, which complains about the U.S. carrying out strikes in its territory.

The home targeted by the drone just after dawn Saturday was in North Waziristan, a Pakistani tribal region that is believed to be an important base for al-Qaida and Taliban militants, intelligence officials said.

The dead and injured included local and foreign militants, but women and children were also killed in the attack, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.

A local tribal elder, Dilawar Khan, confirmed that 13 people were killed, saying the owner's family was among the dead. He said he did not know the identities of the other people killed or whether there were militants staying at the home, in Data Khel village very close to the Afghan border.

Government officials were not immediately available for comment.

Pakistan says the drone strikes violate the country's sovereignty, kill innocent civilians and generate sympathy for the militants. But the U.S. believes the attacks are an effective tool to combat militants in the region.

Some 700 people in the Orakzai tribal region near the Afghan border protested U.S. missile strikes Saturday, blocking a main road for two hours and chanting anti-American slogans, said a local resident, Azeem Khan.

Also Saturday, a suicide car bomber attacked a security checkpoint in North Waziristan's capital, Miran Shah, killing at least two people and wounding more than 20 others, officials said.

The attacker rammed his vehicle into a checkpoint at the entrance of the army headquarters in North Waziristan and detonated his explosives, said Mohammad Azhar, a local government official.

Abbas Ali, a doctor at a government hospital in Miran Shah, said at least two civilians were killed in the attack and 27 others were wounded, including seven children.

The attack also wounded three soldiers, according to a military official who said troops disrupted the attack by opening fire on the vehicle, causing it to explode before it reached the checkpoint. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

The discrepancy between the two accounts could not immediately be explained.

Rahi Noor, a civilian who was wounded in the attack, said a convoy of security forces was headed to the headquarters when the attack occurred.

"I suddenly heard an explosion, then something hit me," he told The Associated Press. "When I woke up I found myself in a hospital bed."

The explosion badly damaged several civilian vehicles and some shops near the checkpoint.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari condemned the attack, vowing that his government would root out terrorism in the country, according to the state-run news agency.

President Barack Obama has said he will step up pressure on Pakistan to crack down on militants in its territory by making aid to the country conditional on the government's anti-terrorism efforts. Pakistan has said it is committed to the fight, but many Western officials suspect the country's military intelligence agency of maintaining links with militant groups.

Zardari defended his country's commitment to fighting Islamic militants in a speech marking the 30th anniversary of the execution of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, an influential former prime minister who was hanged by a military regime on charges widely seen as politically motivated.

"People around the world say that our country will disintegrate. Some say that fundamentalists will rule the country," Zardari told thousands of people who assembled at the slain politician's tomb in southern Sindh province.

"But we will not let it happen as long as we are alive," he said.

Bhutto was the father of Zardari's late wife, Benazir Bhutto, a former prime minister who was assassinated by militants at the end of 2007 not long after returning to the country from exile to run in national elections.