Drone attacks: US missile kills up to seven in Khyber

Drone hits vehicle carrying up to seven suspected militants in Tirah valley.

PESHAWAR: A US missile strike killed seven suspected militants in Khyber Agency on Thursday, local security officials said, in an apparent expansion of America’s covert drone campaign.

Officials said a US drone fired a missile that destroyed a vehicle carrying up to seven suspected militants in the Spin Darang area of the Tirah valley in Khyber.“It was a drone attack. Seven militants travelling in the vehicle were killed in the attack,” a security official in Peshawar said. Another security official said all the dead were local Taliban militants. They were thought to be from Waziristan.

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

Published in The Express Tribune, December 17^th, 2010.