A US drone strike killed six militants yesterday in Pakistan’s lawless tribal belt along the Afghan border, local security officials said.
Four missiles hit a house used by militants in Dashgah village near Datta Khel town, some 45km west of Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan tribal district, the officials said.
“Two US drones fired four missiles and destroyed the house. Six militants were killed in this attack,” a Pakistani security official based in Peshawar said on condition of anonymity.
Two intelligence officials in Miranshah also confirmed the attack and the death toll.
“All of them were militants attached to the Haqqani group,” one intelligence official said.
The second intelligence official said that initial reports suggested the dead were Uzbek militants from Afghanistan.
Pakistani officials have reported that at least 21 US drone attacks killed around 120 people last month, the highest monthly tally of attacks.
The overwhelming majority of the attacks have been carried out in North Waziristan, considered a bastion of al-Qaeda-linked militants and Taliban commanders opposed to the US-led war in Afghanistan.
Most of the strikes have targeted the Haqqani network, one of the strongest US foes in Afghanistan whose leadership is based in North Waziristan.
Washington has classified Pakistan’s tribal belt on the Afghan border as a global headquarters of al-Qaeda and the most dangerous place on Earth.
A covert US drone war in Pakistan has killed around 1,140 people in about 140 strikes since August 2008, including a number of senior militants, but the attacks invariably fuel anti-American sentiment in the conservative Muslim country.
Under US pressure to crack down on Islamist havens, Pakistan has stepped up military operations against largely homegrown militants in the area.
However, commanders have so far avoided launching a major offensive in North Waziristan, arguing that gains elsewhere need to be first consolidated to prevent their troops from being stretched too thin.
Far from the violence ravaging Haiti, a market on the border with the Dominican Republic has maintained a welcome degree of normal everyday life. At the Dajabon border gate, a wave of Haitians press forward, eager to shop at the twice-weekly market about 200km from Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. They are drawn by the market’s offerings — food, clothing, toys and even used appliances — items not always readily available in Haiti. However, with gang violence bad and growing ever worse in Haiti, the Dominican government has reinforced the usual military presence at the border and placed soldiers on alert. While the market continues to
An image of a dancer balancing on the words “China Before Communism” looms over Parisian commuters catching the morning metro, signaling the annual return of Shen Yun, a controversial spectacle of traditional Chinese dance mixed with vehement criticism of Beijing and conservative rhetoric. The Shen Yun Performing Arts company has slipped the beliefs of a spiritual movement called Falun Gong in between its technicolored visuals and leaping dancers since 2006, with advertising for the show so ubiquitous that it has become an Internet meme. Founded in 1992, Falun Gong claims nearly 100 million followers and has been subject to “persistent persecution” in
ONLINE VITRIOL: While Mo Yan faces a lawsuit, bottled water company Nongfu Spring and Tsinghua University are being attacked amid a rise in nationalist fervor At first glance, a Nobel prize winning author, a bottle of green tea and Beijing’s Tsinghua University have little in common, but in recent weeks they have been dubbed by China’s nationalist netizens as the “three new evils” in the fight to defend the country’s valor in cyberspace. Last month, a patriotic blogger called Wu Wanzheng filed a lawsuit against China’s only Nobel prize-winning author, Mo Yan (莫言), accusing him of discrediting the Communist army and glorifying Japanese soldiers in his fictional works set during the Japanese invasion of China. Wu, who posts online under the pseudonym “Truth-Telling Mao Xinghuo,” is seeking
‘SURPRISES’: The militants claim to have successfully tested a missile capable of reaching Mach 8 and vowed to strike ships heading toward the Cape of Good Hope Yemen’s Houthi rebels claim to have a new, hypersonic missile in their arsenal, Russia’s state media reported on Thursday, potentially raising the stakes in their attacks on shipping in the Red Sea and surrounding waterways against the backdrop of Israel’s war with Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The report by the state-run RIA Novosti news agency cited an unidentified official, but provided no evidence for the claim. It comes as Moscow maintains an aggressively counter-Western foreign policy amid its grinding war on Ukraine. However, the Houthis have for weeks hinted about “surprises” they plan for the battles at sea to counter the