A major salvo of US missiles on Wednesday destroyed a Pakistani Taliban base on the Afghan border, killing up to 18 militants including possible al Qaeda fighters, local officials said. Five US drones fired up to 10 missiles into a sprawling compound in the Baber Ghar area of South Waziristan, killing 15 to 18 fighters in the deadliest American strike reported by Pakistani officials in three months.
Five US drones carried out the attack, one of the officials told AFP in the heaviest coordinated strike in northwest Pakistan since a similar strike killed 21 fighters in the Afghan Taliban Haqqani faction on August 10. “The target was a base of Pakistan Taliban. We have reports that 16 to 18 militants were killed,” the official told AFP. Another official said there were reports that “some foreigners” were also killed.
6 KILLED IN TIRAH: Elsewhere in the tribal belt on Wednesday, five men and a 12-year-old boy were killed when a remote-controlled bomb exploded near a passenger van in the troubled Tirah valley of Khyber district, local official Mutahir Zeb said. He said that most of the passangers in the van belonged to the Kukikhel tribe, which is opposed to local militant group Lashkar-e-Islam. Nine people, including two women, were also wounded, Zeb added.
