The reported strike was the first from a drone since US President Barack Obama last week unveiled a sweeping new strategy designed to defeat Islamist militants holed up in Pakistan and neighbouring Afghanistan.

It came a day after Pakistan's Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud claimed responsibility for a deadly assault on a police academy near Lahore which he said was in retaliation for missile attacks.

The missiles blasted the suspected den, 25 kilometres (16 miles) northeast of Hangu -- the first such attack in the semi-autonomous Orakzai tribal region, known as an extremist stronghold, a security official said.

The official said 12 militants were killed in the two attacks, speaking on condition of anonymity as he was not authorised to release the information.

"Some foreigners are believed to be among those killed," he added.

Pakistani officials use the word "foreigner" to refer to suspected Al-Qaeda fighters but the precise identities of the dead was not confirmed.

Taliban members told AFP "some guests" had been staying at the building -- another common reference to foreign militants.

Residents say one of Mehsud's aides, Hakimullah, operates from Orakzai, and that local Taliban are linked to Mehsud's feared Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, which has been trying to gain influence in the area.

A local security official said 10 militants died.

Taliban sealed off the area, pulling out bodies from the debris, leaving security officials unclear about the identities of the dead.

The commander of US forces in the region, General David Petraeus, said in Washington on Wednesday Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked groups represented "an ever more serious threat to Pakistan's very existence".

Hakimullah warned that his fighters would retaliate, telling AFP by telephone the missile attack targeted the compound of a local cleric.

"They should not consider it a small attack. Its pain will be felt in Islamabad," he said. "We will retaliate with equal strength," he added.

More than 35 missile strikes have killed over 350 people since August 2008, fanning hostility against the United States and the government in Pakistan, where nearly 1,700 people have been killed in extremist bombings in two years.

The US military does not, as a rule, confirm drone attacks, but its armed forces and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operating in Afghanistan are the only forces that deploy drones in the region.

Wednesday's attack was the eighth missile strike in Pakistan blamed on the pilotless US aircraft since Obama took office, squashing hopes here that his administration would abandon the tactic.

Pakistan has protested that the strikes violate its territorial sovereignty and deepen resentment among its 160 million people.

The lawless tribal areas of northwest Pakistan have been beset by violence since hundreds of Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters sought refuge there after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan toppled the Taliban regime in late 2001.

The presidents of Afghanistan and Pakistan -- two countries which frequently trade accusations on militants infiltrating each other's borders -- met in Ankara to discuss how to step up cooperation against Islamist extremists.

Obama last Friday put Pakistan at the heart of the fight against Al-Qaeda, tripling US aid and declaring its border with Afghanistan the most dangerous place in the world for Americans.

Referring to the US missile strikes, Obama said in a television interview broadcast last Sunday that "if we have a high-value target within our sights, after consulting with Pakistan, we're going after them".

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