Pakistani Officials: Suspected US Strike Kills 13

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Source: AP

MIR ALI, Pakistan — A suspected U.S. missile strike killed 13 people Saturday in a Pakistani tribal region where several militant outfits plot attacks on Western troops across the border in Afghanistan, officials said.

A roadside bomb aimed at police elsewhere in the country's volatile northwest killed a civilian and wounded eight people.

The attacks came as U.S. special envoy Richard Holbrooke met with Pakistani leaders in Islamabad, the latest in a series of visits aimed at shoring up Pakistani support for the American effort in Afghanistan.

The missile, apparently fired from an unmanned drone, struck a house in Haider Khel village near North Waziristan's Mir Ali town, said two intelligence officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to media on the record.

Local government official Noor Mohammad said at least 13 people had been killed, while the intelligence officials said some foreigners were among the dead. Their exact identities and nationalities were not immediately clear.

The U.S. frequently uses missile strikes to take out Taliban and al-Qaida targets in Pakistan's northwest, especially the lawless tribal regions where many insurgents hide.

This year, the vast majority of the missile strikes have landed in North Waziristan, a segment of the tribal belt that houses several militant groups that focus on attacking Western troops across the border in Afghanistan.

Pakistan publicly protests the strikes as violations of its sovereignty, and the attacks are deeply unpopular among the Pakistani people. But Islamabad is believed to assist in at least some of the missile attacks.

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Once again, we don't know identities, yet killed them anyway.