US drone attack kills 10 in Pakistan

GlobalPost

Ten suspected militants were killed in north-west Pakistan on Wednesday after an unmanned US drone aircraft fired two missiles at an insurgent hideout, Pakistani security officials said.

The early morning attack targeted a house suspected of housing militants in the village of Thapi, 15 kilometers east of the town of Miranshah in North Waziristan near the Afghan border, Reuters reported.

It marks the fifth such strike on Pakistani soil this year. Officials said the ten killed included foreign fighters, but did not specify their nationalities, according to the BBC. The building was completely destroyed.

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North Waziristan is one of seven districts in Pakistan’s ethnic Pashtun tribal region along the Afghanistan border, and is an important base area for the Haqqani network and other militant groups fuelling the insurgency in Afghanistan.

US drone attacks in Pakistan have dropped sharply since November, when a NATO airstrike killed 24 Pakistani soldiers, leading Pakistan to shut down the two NATO supply routes in the country and review its partnership with the US, according to CNN.

The US rarely comments on drone operations, which have killed hundreds of people in recent years.

However, last month President Barack Obama confirmed that American drones regularly target suspected Taliban and Al Qaeda militants in Pakistan’s tribal areas, in the first official acknowledgement of the CIA’s drone program.  

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