Back-to-back hits: Drones strike again, killing 10 in Waziristan

Three attacks mounted in the last 10 hours.

MIRAMSHAH:

At least 10 suspected militants were killed on Thursday when US drones fired missiles on a vehicle and a compound in separate places of Ghulam Khan tehsil in North Waziristan Agency.

The latest strikes brought the total number of fatalities in drone strikes since Wednesday night to 16.

An official of the security forces said two separate drone attacks were carried out on Thursday at around 2:30 am and 2:33am in Tabi Tol Khel and Darga Mandi areas of the tehsil.

In the first attack, the official said, drones fired two missiles on a vehicle loaded with six suspected militants in Tabi Tol Khel, killing all of them. He said the militants had parked their pick-up truck against the outer wall of the compound —both of which were destroyed and remained ablaze.

Three minutes later, the second strike was conducted on a small compound in Darga Mandi area where almost 60,000 residents have fled since May fearing a long-rumoured offensive. At least four people were killed in the second strike.

The official said that the entire vehicle was destroyed with a huge explosion.



The official informed that four suspected militants were killed in the second attack. The militants were presumed to be Uzbek and Afghan Taliban.

Meanwhile, independent sources from the area revealed that two suicide bombers were reportedly killed in the attack on the vehicle. Suspected militants were trying to shift a huge cache of explosives in the vehicle when the missiles hit. The bodies were pulled from the rubble and taken to an undisclosed location for burial.

Just hours earlier, the first drone attack of 2014 was carried out in Darga Mandi area of Ghulam Khan in which six suspected militants were killed, bringing the count to three drone strikes within 10 hours.

The last drone attack on Pakistani soil occurred on December 25, 2013, killing three suspected militants.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 13^th, 2014.