US missiles kill 25 in Pakistan

Four missiles fired by two suspected US pilotless aircraft hit a house in Pakistan’s tribal region of North Waziristan on the Afghan border on Friday, killing 25 militants, while 16 members of Pakistan’s security forces were killed in Taliban attacks on a checkpost on the country’s rugged northwestern frontier.

The drone strikes occurred in Mir Ali, a town about 35 kilometers (20 miles) east of the region’s main town of Miranshah, Pakistani intelligence officials said.

The strike came two days after a visit to Islamabad by Admiral Mike Mullen, the Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff. Admiral Mullen expressed concern over continuing links between Pakistan’s main intelligence agency, the ISI, and militants attacking US-led forces across the border in Afghanistan.

An intelligence official in the region, who requested not to be identified, told Reuters that the house that was bombed was being used as a militant hideout.

“They (the militants) have surrounded the area where the attack happened and are not allowing anybody to go there,” he said, adding 25 bodies had been recovered from the rubble; three women were among those killed.

Another official said some foreign militants were among the dead, but that their numbers and nationalities could not confirmed.

North Waziristan is a known sanctuary for Al Qaeda and Taliban militants near the Afghan border.

The United States has been using drone attacks to target Al Qaeda-linked militants over the past few years in Pakistan’s lawless tribal areas, a source of concern for the Pakistan government, which says civilian casualties stoke public anger and bolster support for militancy.

A military official, meanwhile, said that 16 members of Pakistan’s paramilitary forces were killed in Taliban attacks on a checkpost being set up on the country’s northwestern frontier area.

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, according to Agence-France Presse.

He said 14 of the security forces died in the ambush on Thursday, and a further two were killed in a subsequent attack on troops later sent to reinforce the position.

In the first attack, “fourteen people were killed including nine Frontier Corps soldiers and five police officials,” the official said, adding that five or six other members of the security forces were wounded.

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.

(Abeer Tayel of Al Arabiya