"The strike targeted a madrassa (Islamic school) and an adjoining house in Machikhel village in North Waziristan," a Pakistani security official told AFP.

"At least five people were killed and five others injured," the official said. He earlier gave a death toll of four and six injured.

"One of the injured died of his wounds. Most of the casualties are Taliban militants."

Two other security officials in the area confirmed that the missile was fired from an unmanned US drone aircraft.

A local administration official said that tribesmen had cordoned off the destroyed house and school and were searching for more bodies.

Residents said that the aircrafts hovered in the sky on Sunday and they had been expecting a missile strike at any moment.

Washington alleges Al-Qaeda and Taliban rebels who fled Afghanistan after the 2001 US-led invasion are holed up in the semi-autonomous tribal belt.

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

Taliban warlord Baitullah Mehsud was killed in a US drone attack on August 5 in neighbouring South Waziristan tribal district.

Pakistan's previous government accused Mehsud of masterminding the 2007 assassination of ex-prime minister Benazir Bhutto and a string of other attacks that have killed hundreds of people here over the last two years.

A previous US strike, on August 27, in South Waziristan killed at least eight Taliban militants.

Islamabad publicly opposes suspected US missile strikes, saying they violate its territorial sovereignty and deepen resentment among the populace. Since August 2008, around 53 such strikes have killed more than 525 people.

But many analysts and observers believe that the government tacitly supports the attacks, as it shares the US goal of eliminating Mehsud's network, which is blamed for scores of deadly attacks in nuclear-armed Pakistan.

Pakistan in April launched a punishing military offensive against the Taliban in the northwest, targeting the rebels in the districts of Swat, Buner and Lower Dir after militants advanced closer to the capital Islamabad.

Last month the military claimed to have cleared the area of Taliban and vowed to turn their attention to the mountainous tribal belt along the border where Mehsud and his Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) have thrived since 2007.

related report
Taliban call for probe as fall-out from Afghan air raid reverberates
The Taliban Monday called on the international community to shed full light on a NATO air raid that killed dozens of people in Afghanistan, as the fall-out from last week's incident reverberated worldwide.

Friday's air raid in northern Kunduz province killed at least 54 people, according to local officials, who say the dead were mostly Taliban militant fighters who had hijacked two fuel tankers.

But other sources put the death toll far higher and there are conflicting reports about the number of civilians killed in the strike.

The Taliban, waging an increasingly deadly insurgency since they were ousted from power in a US-led invasion in 2001, Monday sent a statement by email listing names and professions of 79 civilians it claimed died in the attack.

An earlier statement had put the number of killed civilians at 150.

"Without any doubt a big crime... has been committed in Kunduz province and civilians have been targeted," said the statement.

"International law, the Charter of the United Nations and the Geneva Conventions are very clear on such crimes," the Taliban said.

"If the United Nations, Amnesty International and human rights organisations ... really recognize human rights or hold them important, then the truth and the lies will be known in this affair," the document added.

The controversy about the NATO strike comes as the taint of fraud deepened in Afghanistan's presidential election after thousands of votes were tossed out amid allegations of rampant ballot-stuffing and intimidation.

Incumbent Hamid Karzai is edging towards victory in the painstaking vote count, but Afghanistan's Western partners fear the mounting allegations against him could undermine his credibility should he eventually win.

In an interview with French daily Le Figaro published on Monday, Karzai said he hoped to hold peace talks with the Taliban within 100 days if he is confirmed in office for another five years.

Karzai is not the only world leader under pressure amid election concerns, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel coming under fire Monday over the NATO air strike, which was ordered by a German commander.

Anguished debate in Germany about civilian casualties comes only 20 days before the country goes to the polls and amid already meagre public support for the army's deployment in war-ravaged Afghanistan.

Germany, along with Britain and France, unveiled on Sunday their plans to hold an international conference later this year on the fate of Afghanistan, underlying growing concerns that the security situation is deteriorating.

At a joint press briefing with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Merkel urged Afghans to take more responsibility for their own country.

With the help of an upcoming review by the new US and NATO commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, the conference will clarify for all nations "what job they have to do and what our common aim is", Merkel said.

The increasing death toll among its troops and fears for civilians has also sparked debate in Britain about the role and future of Western soldiers in Afghanistan, with Brown's popularity flagging badly according to opinion polls.

More than 300 foreign soldiers have died in Afghanistan so far this year, compared to 294 in all of 2008.

And in Washington, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates acknowledged in an interview with Al-Jazeera that civilian casualties have become "a real problem" for the NATO-led mission in Afghanistan.

"I think it's a real problem, and General McChrystal thinks it's a real problem, too," Gates said in an interview with the Qatar-based Arabic satellite news channel.

According to a transcript of the interview posted on Al-Jazeera's website, Gates said the Taliban actively targeted civilians or put them at risk in other ways.

"But we are trying to figure out new tactics that minimize this. But it is a challenge," he added.

"Central to the success of the 42 nations that are trying to help the Afghan people and government at this point is that the Afghan people continue to believe that we are their friends, their partners and here to help them.

"So civilian casualties are a problem for us and we are doing everything conceivable to try and avoid that," he said.

The NATO strike also has added fuel to a debate in the United States over the size and scope of the US military commitment in Afghanistan, with commanders nevertheless expected to ask for more troops.

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