MIRANSHAH: US drone strikes targeted militant vehicles in North Waziristan Agency on Sunday, killing nine terrorists, security officials said. Two missiles were fired at a vehicle soon after it left a militant compound near Miranshah, a security official said.
“The attack blew up the vehicle and also damaged the compound. Five militants were killed, they had been inside the vehicle, which was destroyed in the attack,” the official said from Miranshah. Another official, in the city of Peshawar, said the drone fired four missiles in two separate raids on the car in Dandey Saidgai village, confirming the deaths of five militants.
A drone then fired two missiles at a car in Moizer town, 40 kilometres west of Miranshah, officials said. “Four militants were killed as the attack blew up their car in a fireball,” an official said. Two other other security officials confirmed the attack and the casualties.
The region is considered a fortress for Taliban and Al Qaeda-linked fighters and the focus of a dramatic increase in US drone strikes.
It was not immediately clear if the drones were chasing any high value target, officials said.
The latest attacks came after a rare triple drone strike on Wednesday killed at least 11 militants in the same region.
Taliban execute three ‘US spies’
Militants publicly executed three tribesmen in North Waziristan Agency on Sunday after accusing them of spying for the US, officials said. The men, blindfolded with hands tied behind their backs, were lined up near a gas station, local police official Nasir Khan said.
“A man wearing a black mask then shot them dead one by one,” he said, adding that the militants, before killing the trio, asked local people to “come and witness the fate of US spies”. He said that about 100 people watched the executions at an open area on a road near Miranshah, the main town in the agency.
The alleged spies were local tribesmen aged 25, 28 and 32, Khan said. The militants left in two cars after the killings. A local intelligence official also confirmed the executions, which came amid a surge in US drone attacks in the tribal belt.
