Suspected US strike kills eight in Pakistan
Unmanned craft hits militant target
DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan - A suspected US missile attack killed eight militants, including several foreigners, yesterday in the stronghold of Pakistan's top Taliban commander, intelligence officials said.
The strike came as President Barack Obama's administration prepares to unveil a new strategy to quell Islamist insurgents threatening nuclear-armed Pakistan as well as neighboring Afghanistan, and to keep the pressure on Al Qaeda leaders in the region.
American officials have indicated that attacks along Pakistan's unpoliced western frontier, apparently carried out by unmanned CIA aircraft and stepped up since last year, will continue despite protests from the Pakistani government.
The strike yesterday damaged two vehicles near Makeen, a town in the South Waziristan tribal region that borders Afghanistan, two Pakistani intelligence officials said.
Citing informants and intercepted militant communications, the officials said four of the dead were foreigners who had been riding in a pickup truck near a small bridge. Four local militants also died, while three more were injured, they said.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly to the media. Reporters cannot verify reports from the area because authorities and militants limit access.
Makeen is the base of Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of Pakistan's Taliban movement. There was no immediate indication that he or any other senior militant figure was in either of the two vehicles targeted yesterday.
In apparent frustration at Pakistan's stop-start efforts to gain control of its border areas, American forces have carried out dozens of missile attacks on Al Qaeda and Taliban targets in Pakistan's border belt since last year.
US officials say the strikes have killed a string of militant leaders and put Al Qaeda on the defensive in an area considered a possible hiding place for its fugitive leaders, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri.
However, the Pakistani government argues that the tactic is counterproductive because it kills civilians, stokes anti-American feeling, and undermines its own efforts to isolate extremists. 