Two US drone strikes targeting vehicles killed seven militants on Sunday in Pakistan’s rugged tribal region near the Afghan border, officials said.
Both attacks took place in Asar village of Datta Khel town, about 50km west of Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan tribal district known as a hub for Taliban and al-Qaeda-linked militants.
“The US drone fired three missiles at the militants’ vehicle, killing four rebels,” a senior security official in the area said of the first strike, adding that the nationalities of those killed were not immediately known.
Another senior security official in the area confirmed the strike and toll.
The second strike, also targeting a vehicle, killed three rebels in the same village.
“Four missiles fired from a US drone on another vehicle which was going to the site of the first attack for rescue work, killing three militants,” a senior security official in the area said.
The two strikes came little over 24 hours after a similar drone attack in the same Datta Khel area, which killed four rebels on Saturday. The US has launched eighteen such drone attacks in just 23 days in North Waziristan.
US forces have been waging a drone war against Taliban and al-Qaeda-linked commanders in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal belt, where militants have carved out havens in mountains outside direct government control.
Washington has branded the rugged tribal area on the Afghan border a global headquarters of al-Qaeda and the most dangerous place on Earth.
The US military does not as a rule confirm drone attacks, but its armed forces and the Central Intelligence Agency operating in Afghanistan are the only forces that deploy pilotless drones in the region.
More than 1,100 people have been killed in over 130 drone strikes in Pakistan since August 2008, including a number of senior militants.
The missiles have mostly targeted militants linked with the Haqqani network, which is based in North Waziristan.
Officials in Washington say the strikes have killed a number of high-value targets including Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud.
However, the attacks fuel anti-US sentiment in the conservative Muslim country.
Under US pressure to crack down on Islamist havens along the Afghan border, Pakistan has in the past year stepped up military operations against largely homegrown militants in the area.
Last year Pakistan launched its most ambitious military offensive yet against Taliban militants in South Waziristan, expanding the campaign to many of the other seven semi-autonomous tribal districts along the border.
Pakistani commanders have not ruled out an offensive in North Waziristan, but argue that gains in South Waziristan and the northwestern district of Swat need to be consolidated to prevent their troops from being stretched too thin.
FORUM: The Solomon Islands’ move to bar Taiwan, the US and others from the Pacific Islands Forum has sparked criticism that Beijing’s influence was behind the decision Tuvaluan Prime Minister Feletei Teo said his country might pull out of the region’s top political meeting next month, after host nation Solomon Islands moved to block all external partners — including China, the US and Taiwan — from attending. The Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) leaders’ meeting is to be held in Honiara in September. On Thursday last week, Solomon Islands Prime Minister Jeremiah Manele told parliament that no dialogue partners would be invited to the annual gathering. Countries outside the Pacific, known as “dialogue partners,” have attended the forum since 1989, to work with Pacific leaders and contribute to discussions around
END OF AN ERA: The vote brings the curtain down on 20 years of socialist rule, which began in 2005 when Evo Morales, an indigenous coca farmer, was elected president A center-right senator and a right-wing former president are to advance to a run-off for Bolivia’s presidency after the first round of elections on Sunday, marking the end of two decades of leftist rule, preliminary official results showed. Bolivian Senator Rodrigo Paz was the surprise front-runner, with 32.15 percent of the vote cast in an election dominated by a deep economic crisis, results published by the electoral commission showed. He was followed by former Bolivian president Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga in second with 26.87 percent, according to results based on 92 percent of votes cast. Millionaire businessman Samuel Doria Medina, who had been tipped
Outside Havana, a combine belonging to a private Vietnamese company is harvesting rice, directly farming Cuban land — in a first — to help address acute food shortages in the country. The Cuban government has granted Agri VAM, a subsidiary of Vietnam’s Fujinuco Group, 1,000 hectares of arable land in Los Palacios, 118km west of the capital. Vietnam has advised Cuba on rice cultivation in the past, but this is the first time a private firm has done the farming itself. The government approved the move after a 52 percent plunge in overall agricultural production between 2018 and 2023, according to data
ELECTION DISTRACTION? When attention shifted away from the fight against the militants to politics, losses and setbacks in the battlefield increased, an analyst said Recent clashes in Somalia’s semi-autonomous Jubaland region are alarming experts, exposing cracks in the country’s federal system and creating an opening for militant group al-Shabaab to gain ground. Following years of conflict, Somalia is a loose federation of five semi-autonomous member states — Puntland, Jubaland, Galmudug, Hirshabelle and South West — that maintain often fractious relations with the central government in the capital, Mogadishu. However, ahead of elections next year, Somalia has sought to assert control over its member states, which security analysts said has created gaps for al-Shabaab infiltration. Last week, two Somalian soldiers were killed in clashes between pro-government forces and
RSS