The Associated Press: Suspected US missile strike kills 8 in Pakistan
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — A suspected U.S. missile strike killed eight people in northwestern Pakistan on Friday and fighting at another militant stronghold near the Afghan border killed dozens more, officials said.
Two intelligence officials told The Associated Press that missiles struck a home near Miran Shah, the main town in the North Waziristan tribal region, before dawn.
The officials said the identity of the eight people killed and five others who were injured was not immediately clear.
American forces in Afghanistan are stepping up their efforts to hit Taliban and al-Qaida militants in what they describe as safe havens in Pakistan's wild border regions, despite stiff protests from Islamabad.
With the insurgency in Afghanistan intensifying, President Bush secretly approved more aggressive cross-border operations in July, current and former American officials have told the AP.
The intelligence officials said agents in South Waziristan had told them about the latest attack. A military official also said he had received reports of a missile strike. He had no information on casualties.
The three officials asked for anonymity because they are not authorized to speak on the record to media.
North Waziristan is part of a belt of tribally governed territory where Pakistan's government has little control. The frontier region is considered the most likely hiding place for Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri.
Both the U.S. military and the CIA operate drone aircraft armed with missiles of the type believed to have killed two senior al-Qaida commanders in Pakistani territory earlier this year.
Pakistani officials warn that they strikes will deepen anti-American sentiment in the country and wreck efforts to win over moderate tribal leaders and bring economic development to the impoverished border region.
Authorities negotiated a peace deal with tribes in North Waziristan earlier this year. Similar efforts have failed or broken down on other parts of the northwest.
On Friday, army spokesman Maj. Murad Khan said 32 militants and 2 soldiers had died in the previous 24 hours in the Bajur region. Iqbal Khattak, a local government official, put the total for the 24-hour period higher, saying about 60 militants have died.
Officials say hundreds of militants have died there in a weeks-long offensive into Bajur. An estimated 500,000 people have fled their homes. Officials acknowledge that civilian have been killed and villages badly damaged in the fighting.
Associated Press writer Ishtiaq Mahsud in Dera Ismail Khan and Habib Khan in Khar contributed to this report.
Give us free hand to operate in Afghanistan and we will capture Osama.
