[Dawn] A US drone attacked a compound in the Dandy Derpakhel area of North Waziristan on Wednesday, killing eight suspected militants and injuring six others.According to sources, the unmanned plane fired three missiles, one of which hit a parked vehicle. The compound and the car were completely destroyed.
An official said that militants surrounded the place after the attack and took away the bodies and the injured. He said that some people from Punjab were among the dead.
According to Reuters, the strike targeted a stronghold of the Haqqani network, a major Taliban faction attacking western forces across the border in Afghanistan. A similar strike last week in the same area killed a son of Jalaluddin Haqqani, the leader of the group.
Meanwhile, three bodies were found near Khaisur village of Mirali tehsil. It is learnt that the Taliban slaughtered the three men, two Afghan nationals and a local tribesman, after accusing them of spying for US forces.
More, from The News (Pak)
Nine suspected militants from Punjab were killed in a US drone attack on a house in Peerano Killay near Miramshah, the headquarters of North Waziristan, on Wednesday, official and tribal sources said.
The sources said the drone fired two missiles at a house, where the Punjabi Taliban were residing. The house was razed to the ground and two cars parked there were also damaged after being buried under the debris of the building.
Peerano Killay of Darga Mandi is located six kilometres west of Miramshah, on the main Miramshah-Ghulam Khan road near the Afghan border. Some reports suggested that the drone fired a missile at a car that was about to enter the house. Another missile later also hit the house.
The sources close to the militants said five people died on the spot while four others sustained serious injuries. Militants and villagers rushed to the spot when the drones disappeared. They pulled out the badly mutilated bodies and four injured from the rubble of the collapsed building.
The local administration clamped curfew for an indefinite period in North Waziristan on Wednesday that delayed the shifting of the injured people to hospitals in Miramshah. However, militants later ignored the curfew and brought the injured to the Agency Headquarters Hospital in Miramshah.
One of the injured died of wounds on his way to the hospital while the other three succumbed to their injuries at the hospital, the sources said. Tribesmen in Miramshah said they later saw militants buying nine caskets at a market in the town. They were seen taking the caskets towards the Darga Mandi area in pick-up trucks.
The US spy aircraft are frequently seen flying in North Waziristan. The drones have carried out 18 airstrikes in the area this year. Meanwhile, the bullet-riddled bodies of two men found in Mirali were said to be of Afghan nationals.
A piece of paper found on their bodies accused them of spying for the US forces in neighbouring Afghanistan on the “Mujahideen' and warned that anyone found spying for America would meet the same fate.