THE death toll in a suspected US missile strike in northwest Pakistan rose to 18, with 50 others wounded, according to local officials. Two missiles fired by an unmanned drone destroyed a Taliban training camp in Kurram, officials said, one of seven semi-autonomous regions near Pakistan's porous border with Afghanistan, where US troops are battling Taliban fighters. "The death toll has risen to 18 as three more bodies were found and they (militants) are are still sifting the rubble for more bodies," a local administration official told AFP.Time for another flight.
A senior security official told AFP on condition of anonymity that 50 others, mostly militants, were injured and the dead included "foreigners" -- a reference to Al-Qaeda. No high-value targets were believed to have died, the official added.
Another security official said most of the dead were Afghan Taliban. "The training centre was run by local Taliban commander Fazal Saeed and training was underway at the time of the strike," the official added.
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More than 30 such strikes have killed over 330 people since August 2008, shortly before key Washington ally President Asif Ali Zardari was elected.
The US military as a rule does not confirm drone attacks but the armed forces and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operating in Afghanistan are the only forces that deploy drones in the region. Yesterday's attack was the fifth missile strike blamed on unmanned US aircraft since President Barack Obama came to power, dashing Pakistani hopes that the new administration would abandon the policy.