US drone strike kills 4 militants in Kurram

The strike hit Shahidano village in the violence-wracked Kurram tribal district, 100 kilometres southwest of Peshawar.

KURRAM AGENCY: A US drone strike on Saturday killed four militants in Lower Kurram Agency  near the Afghan border, security officials said.

The strike hit Shahidano village in the violence-wracked Kurram tribal district, 100 kilometres (62 miles) southwest of Peshawar.

"Four militants have been killed in this drone attack," a security official in Peshawar told AFP by telephone.

Another security official in Peshawar said that the US drone fired four missiles, hitting two vehicles near a house. "All those killed were militants of Tehrik-e-Taliban," the official said.

Officials said that militants were crossing in two vehicles from Orakzai to Kurram but were hit when they stopped in front of a house. Both the vehicles were destroyed in the attack, officials said.

Kurram agency is an adjoining district to Orakzai Agency, the home town of Hakimullah Mehsud, a Taliban chief who escaped a US missile attack on January 14 in North Waziristan.

More than 1,000 people have been killed in over 100 drone strikes in Pakistan since August 2008, including a number of senior militants.