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Suspected US missile hit Al-Qaeda den: Pakistani officials
Islamabad (AFP) Jan 31, 2008 A clutch of Al-Qaeda militants, including seven Arabs and six Central Asians, were killed this week when a suspected US missile hit their hideout in Pakistan, security officials said Thursday. The missile hit a house in the troubled tribal district of North Waziristan late Monday, but the Pakistani army has so far given no information about the incident. Residents had reported that a pilotless drone aircraft of the type operated by US-led coalition forces based in Afghanistan was seen flying over the area shortly before the strike, near the town of Mir Ali. "This compound was targeted on intelligence intercepts that it was used by foreign Al-Qaeda militants," a senior security official told AFP, citing intelligence reports from local residents. "After intercepts it was struck by a missile from across the border. Seven Arabs and six central Asians were killed." The destroyed compound, owned by a local tribesman, was located in a forested, mountainous part of the semi-autonomous tribal belt that made it impossible for security agents to reach, officials said. Pakistani officials never confirm strikes by US-led forces because of sensitivities over national sovereignty. President Pervez Musharraf has recently fought off increasing pressure from his allies in Washington to allow US troops to hunt down Al-Qaeda and Taliban rebels in the rugged tribal belt. But previous such attacks have claimed the lives of several militants in Pakistan. A US Predator drone targeted Al-Qaeda's deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in January 2006, killing several rebels but missing him. Pakistan has 90,000 troops in the tribal belt fighting militants -- many of them foreign -- who fled Afghanistan after US forces toppled the Taliban regime following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. Many of the insurgents were given shelter by the region's conservative ethnic Pashtun tribes, and have since turned the area into what US officials describe as a major haven for Al-Qaeda operations. Community Email This Article Comment On This Article Related Links News From Across The Stans
US concerned international community may abandon Afghanistan
Washington (AFP) Jan 31, 2008The United States expressed concern Thursday that the international community could abandon Afghanistan, cautioning that success in the insurgency-wracked nation was "not assured." |
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