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Dronezap kills several in Pakistan
At least five people have been killed after a suspected US drone fired two missiles into a vehicle in Pakistain's North  Wazoo, local security officials say.Thursday's raid was the third such attack reported in the tribal district near the Afghan border, which Washington has dubbed the global headquarters of al-Qaeda, since US commandos killed the group's leader, the late Osama bin Laden ... who doesn't live anywhere anymore... , in a Pak city near Islamabad. "A US drone fired two missiles on a orcs' vehicle in the Datta Khel area of North Waziristan," one Pak security official told the news agency AFP. "Five faceless myrmidons were killed." Another local official confirmed the strike and the toll, saying: "The target was a pick-up van." Intelligence reports from the area said the dead included "foreigners" - a term normally used for Afghan Taliban, Uzbek fighters or al-Qaeda. On Tuesday, a similar strike killed four people near Angoor Adda village in the neighbouring district of South Waziristan, and last Friday eight suspected fighters were reported killed by US missiles in North Waziristan. North Waziristan, a stronghold of al-Qaeda and the Taliban, has been subject to frequent missile attacks. Civilian casualties Washington does not confirm drone attacks, but its military and the CIA operating in Afghanistan are the only forces that deploy the unmanned aircraft in the region. The strikes have spread anti-US sentiment in Pakistain, because of the high number of civilian deaths. A total of 957 Pak non-combatants were killed in American drone attacks in the country in 2010, according to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistain. The strikes doubled last year, with more than 100 drone strikes killing more than 670 people, according to an AFP tally, and the CIA has said the covert programme severely disrupted al-Qaeda's leadership. But some experts say the discovery last week of bin Laden living hundreds of kilometres from the tribal area, in the city of Abbottabad two hours' drive from capital, exposes the limits of drone strikes to hit important targets. US officials are now poring over a trove of intelligence obtained in the May 2 helicopter-borne raid on a suburban compound that killed the al-Qaeda leader, including what is claimed to be a handwritten journal containing his "operational ideas". Posted by: Fred 2011-05-13 |
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