| Continues, adds detail to yesterday's story... |
Seventeen people including at least seven Taliban militants were killed in a missile attack by United States spy planes targeting Taliban commander Jalaluddin Haqqani's compound in North Waziristan on Monday, witnesses and officials said. Haqqani is a veteran commander of the US-backed Afghan war against the Soviet invasion in the 1970s and 1980s, and his links with Osama Bin Laden go back to the late 1980s."About six Hellfire missiles were fired from two drones" near a madrassa he had founded adjacent to his house in Dandi Darpakhel area two kilometres north of Miranshah bazaar," officials at a hospital told Daily Times, speaking on condition of anonymity. They said 19 people were injured in the attack, and that some of the injured were in a critical condition.
Among the dead were Haqqani's daughter, daughter-in-law and two nephews, witnesses said, but Haqqani's sons only confirmed the death of an aunt while talking to Reuters. US intelligence officials disagreed on whether any foreign militants were killed, but said Arab and Uzbek militants had stayed at the madrassa.
Haqqani is said to be in ill health and his son, Sirajuddin, has been leading the Haqqani group.
Haqqani in Afghanistan: One of Haqqani's younger sons said his father and Sirajuddin were nowhere near when the attack took place. "Haqqani and Sirajuddin were in Afghanistan at the time of the attack. They are alive," Badruddin, the commander's third son, told Reuters by telephone.
He said six missiles had struck the house, which the family had owned for 30 years. Residents said militants cordoned off the bombed site. Military spokesman Major-General Athar Abbas told Reuters an 'incident' had taken place and its cause was being ascertained.
The New York Times reported in July that the US Central Intelligence Agency had given Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani evidence of a Pakistani intelligence agency's ties with Haqqani.