US missile attack kills two militants in Waziristan

Mir Ali: Suspected US missiles killed two alleged militants yesterday in a northwestern tribal region, intelligence officials said, while Pakistani soldiers battled Taliban fighters in a neighbouring area along the Afghan border.

The attack indicated the US will not sideline a favourite tactic against Isextremists despite Pakistani concerns that the missile strikes anger insurgents who have agreed to stay neutral as the army wages an offensive against the Pakistani Taliban in South Waziristan.

The military said in a statement that 28 militants and five soldiers had been killed in the last 24 hours of fighting in South Waziristan. It says hundreds of militants have been killed in the offensive, which began in mid-October, but those reports are impossible to confirm because the area has been sealed off.

The drone-fired missiles hit a house in Naurak village in the North Waziristan tribal area overnight, killing two alleged militants, the two officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to the media on the record.

No verification

However, local tribesman Inayat Wazir told The Associated Press by telephone that the house was empty and no one had died. It was not immediately possible to verify either claim due to the dangerous nature of the region.

The area struck is believed to be under the control of Hafiz Gul Bahadur, a warlord involved in fighting US and Nato troops in Afghanistan. Pakistan's military has struck a deal with Bahadur — saying they would leave him alone as long as he stayed out of their way in South Waziristan as they fight the Pakistani Taliban, the network the government blames for most of the suicide bombings in the country.

Pakistani military officials could not immediately be reached for comment, but in the past officials have said the country would prefer there be no outside interference as it takes on the militants.

Condemnation

The truth is difficult to determine. The Americans rarely discuss the missile strikes, and although the Pakistanis publicly condemn them as violations of their sovereignty, many analysts believe the two countries have a secret deal allowing them.

A CIA missile strike killed the Pakistani Taliban's former leader, Baitullah Mehsud, in August just as the country's military was using air strikes to soften up targets ahead of the ground offensive, and local intelligence officials later confirmed they had aided the US in tracking down the target.

Meanwhile, militants blew up a girls' school in the Khyber tribal region yesterday, said local administrator Ghulam Farooq Khan. No one was injured in the explosion, the latest in a long series of attacks against schools, particularly those for girls. The Taliban is deeply opposed to Western-style education.

It was the second destruction of a school in that area this week.

Elsewhere, security forces arrested eight Iranians and were interrogating them in connection with a suicide attack last month in Iran, an intelligence official said. Five of those arrested have been named by the Iranian government as suspects in the attack, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.