Officials: 2 drone strikes kill 13 in NW Pakistan

PARACHINAR, Pakistan — Two missile attacks killed 13 militants in northwestern Pakistan’s tribal belt Tuesday in the latest apparent strikes of a covert U.S. program that American officials are considering intensifying.

Unmanned drones have carried out more than 70 missile attacks in the border region over the last year, but Washington rarely acknowledges the strikes. The United States says the mountainous tribal area is a base for militant attacks on American and other NATO troops in neighboring Afghanistan and a stronghold of al-Qaida’s senior leadership.

One of Tuesday’s attacks targeted a Taliban compound in the South Waziristan tribal region and killed six insurgents, including two Uzbek fighters, and wounded six others, two Pakistani intelligence officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to release the information.

The attack occurred in Sararogha village, the base of former Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, who was killed in an Aug. 5 airstrike by a U.S. drone.

South Waziristan has seen a spike in violence in recent days, including suicide attacks and rocket and mortar exchanges between militants and the Pakistani army. The army has moved into other areas in the northwest over the last year, but has so far avoided major operations in Waziristan.

A second missile later Tuesday plowed into a house owned by a known Afghan militant in North Waziristan, three intelligence officials and one government official said. Seven insurgents died, they said, also on condition of anonymity, citing policy.

Residents of Dandey Darpakhel village said they saw drones flying over the area for hours before the strike.

“We heard big explosions,” said villager Ahmad Hasan. “I went to the scene and saw three dead bodies myself. I also saw three or four people with serious wounds.”

The village is home to a religious seminary of al-Qaida-linked Taliban leader Siraj Haqqani.

The U.S. has accused the Haqqani network of masterminding beheadings and suicide bombings in Afghanistan, including the July 2008 attack on the Indian Embassy in Kabul that killed some 60 people. The Haqqani group also was linked to an assassination attempt on Afghan President Hamid Karzai early last year.

Washington says defeating insurgents in Pakistan is vital for stabilizing Afghanistan, where violence is raging eight years after the U.S.-led invasion to topple the Taliban. The U.S. believes much of the Afghan insurgency is directed by militants in safe havens across the border.

U.S. officials have said they are considering a strategy of intensified drone attacks against al-Qaida and Taliban targets on the Pakistani side of the border, as an alternative to sending more troops to Afghanistan.

Associated Press writers Asif Shahzad and Munir Ahmad in Islamabad, Ishtiaq Mehsud in Dera Ismail Khan and Rasool Dawar in Mir Ali contributed to this report.