Peshawar: Thirteen Taliban militants were killed in a suspected US drone attack in Pakistan's South Waziristan region last week, security officials and tribal sources said Friday.
Security sources said there was strong evidence that Taj Gul Mehsud, a senior Taliban commander and close aide to Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) leader Hakimullah Mehsud, was among the victims in the attack on Wednesday.
Tribal elders from the Mehsud tribe in Mir Ali in neighbouring North Waziristan said two missiles struck a militant compound. They put the death toll much higher — up to 22 people — and said all were members of the TTP, or Pakistan Taliban.
Six others were injured, security forces said. Security officials and Taliban sources said the remote location of the suspected strike prevented it from being reported earlier, and reports of the strike only surfaced when the injured arrived at a hospital in Mir Ali.
The Obama administration has stepped up drone strikes against Al Qaida and Taliban militants in Pakistan's tribal border areas in an effort to stabilise Afghanistan before the end of 2014, when all Nato combat troops are due to leave.
Wednesday's strike came a day before another drone attack on Thursday killed five commanders of a powerful Pakistani Taliban faction that attacks Western forces in Afghanistan, one of the group's leaders said.
The commanders killed in the strike belonged to the Maulvi Nazir faction of Pakistan's Taliban, which carries out cross-border attacks from its strongholds in South Waziristan. The Nazir faction threatened in June to escalate attacks on US troops in response to drone strikes.