Wazoo near the Afghan border, officials said.The aircraft fired missiles hours apart on separate targets in what is considered the premier bastion of Taliban and al-Qaeda in Pakistain as the government in Islamabad welcomed the Afghan and Iranian leaders for a summit.
Five Death Eaters were killed in the first attack that destroyed a compound in Spalga town near Miranshah
... headquarters of al-Qaeda in Pakistain and likely location of Ayman al-Zawahiri. The Haqqani network has established a
ministatein centered on the town with courts, tax offices and lots of madrassas...
and at least eight died in the second attack on a vehicle near the town of Mir Ali, about 25 kilometers to the east.
"The corpse count may rise," a Pak security official warned Agence La Belle France Presse after the second strike targeted Death Eaters travelling in a double cabin pick-up.
"At least eight myrmidon have been killed in the second strike," he said, describing them all as "foreigners".
Another security official in Miranshah, the capital of North Waziristan, put the corpse count at 12, saying they were all Uzbek Islamist fighters.
"The vehicle caught fire and the dead bodies are badly mutilated," he added.
The United States says Pakistain's tribal belt provides sanctuary to Taliban fighting in Afghanistan, Al-Qaeda groups plotting attacks on the West, and Pak Taliban who routinely bomb Pakistain and other imported muscle.
Those killed in the first attack were loyalists of Badar Mansoor and the Haqqani network, loyal to the Afghan Taliban whose leaders are understood to be based in North Waziristan, one of the Pak officials said.
Last Thursday, officials said Mansoor, described as the "de facto leader of al-Qaeda in Pakistain" was killed in a drone strike in North Waziristan.
Mansoor was considered one of America's main targets in the country, wanted for kabooms on the minority Ahmadi sect that killed nearly 100 people in May 2010 and the chief link between al-Qaeda and the Pak Taliban.
The United States has blamed the Haqqani network for some of the most spectacular attacks carried out in Kabul, including last September's siege of the U.S. embassy.
On Thursday, Pakistain hosted Afghanistan's Caped President Hamid
Maybe I'll join the TalibanKarzai
... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a
Pashtunface on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use...
and Iranian leader
Mahmoud Short RoundAhmadinejad for a regional summit at a key juncture in peace efforts with the Taliban.
President Barack Obama
B.O....
last month confirmed for the first time that U.S. drones target Taliban and al-Qaeda Death Eaters on Pak soil, but American officials do not discuss details of the covert program.
According to an AFP tally, 45 U.S. missile strikes were reported in Pakistain's tribal belt in 2009, the year Obama took office, 101 in 2010 and 64 in 2011.
The program has dramatically increased as the B.O. regime looks to withdraw all foreign combat troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.
U.S. diplomatic cables leaked by WikiLeaks in late 2010 showed that Pakistain's civilian and military leaders privately supported U.S. drone attacks, despite public condemnation in a country where the U.S. alliance is hugely unpopular.
The New America Foundation think-tank in Washington says drone strikes in Pakistain have killed between 1,715 and 2,680 people in the past eight years.
Pakistain is reviewing its entire alliance with the United States and has kept its Afghan border closed to NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis....
supply convoys since the November strike.
It ordered U.S. personnel to leave the Shamsi air base in southwestern Pakistain, widely believed to have been a hub for the CIA drone program, and is thought likely to only reopen the Afghan border by exacting taxes on convoys.
| More details from Dawn: |
Five Death Eaters were killed in the first attack that destroyed a compound in Spalga town near Miranshah, and at least eight died in the second attack on a vehicle near the town of Mir Ali, about 25 kilometres to the east.
“At least eight Death Eaters have been killed in the second strike,” he said, describing them all as “foreigners”.
Another security official in Miransha put the corpse count at 12, saying they were all Uzbek Islamist fighters
“The vehicle caught fire and the dead bodies are badly mutilated,” he added.
The United States says PakistainÂ’s tribal belt provides sanctuary to Taliban fighting in Afghanistan, al Qaeda groups plotting attacks on the West, and Pak Taliban who routinely bomb Pakistain and other imported muscle.
Those killed in the first attack were loyalists of Badar Mansoor and the Haqqani network, loyal to the Afghan Taliban whose leaders are understood to be based in North Waziristan, one of the Pak officials said.
Last Thursday, officials said Mansoor, described as the “de facto leader of al Qaeda in Pakistain” was killed in a drone strike in North Waziristan.
Mansoor was considered one of AmericaÂ’s main targets in the country, wanted for kabooms on the minority Ahmadi sect that killed nearly 100 people in May 2010 and the chief link between al Qaeda and the Pak Taliban..