WANA/PESHAWAR: Undeterred by the strong protest lodged by the Pakistani military leadership over the drone attacks in the tribal areas, the CIA-operated spy planes on Wednesday carried out another missile attack, killing six more people in South Waziristan.
Tribal sources said the drone fired four missiles, hitting a house in the remote mountainous Tora Taka village near Angoor Adda, a border town between Pakistan’s restive South Waziristan and Afghanistan’s troubled Paktika province. The house, two vehicles and a motorcycle were reportedly destroyed in the attack.
According to sources, six other people present in the house sustained injuries and were taken to a nearby private health facility. There were conflicting reports about the identity of the victims.
Local villagers said an Afghan refugee family was residing in the house and most of those killed and injured in the attack were Afghan nationals.
Other sources said the house was being used as a hideout by the militants affiliated with a pro-government Taliban commander Maulvi Nazeer.
They said most of those killed in the missile strikes were tribal and Punjabi militants and their local hosts.
The Taliban, however, denied this piece of information and claimed their men were not present in the house during the attack.
Maulvi Nazeer and his group, which is not part of the Hakimullah Mahsud-led Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), has signed a peace accord with the government and promised to shun militancy in the tribal region.
It was the first missile attack by the CIA in the Pakistani tribal areas after the deadly attack on a tribal Jirga in Dattakhel area of North Waziristan tribal region on March 17. Around 50 local villagers, mostly members of the tribal Jirga, children and personnel of the Khassadar force were killed and dozens of others injured in the attack on the Jirga.
Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani had strongly reacted to the attack on the tribal Jirga and asked the United States that it should not happen again.
The reaction from the Pakistani military leadership was so strong that the tribesmen had started believing that the CIA would no more send its unmanned spy planes to target the people in the tribal areas.
Though the CIA has not yet carried out any missile attack in North Waziristan after targeting the Jirga members in Dattakhel, this time they chose to hit their target in the adjoining South Waziristan.
