Pakistan tribal area hit by missile attack
Six people reported dead in North Waziristan, days after fighters attacked country’s busiest airport.
A suspected US missile attack has killed six people in a northwest tribal district in Pakistan, Pakistani sources say, days after fighters launched a raid on the country’s busiest airport.
Missiles were fired at a vehicle and a compound in Dargah Mandi village in North Waziristan, about 10km west of the main town of Miranshah in an area considered a stronghold for the al-Qaeda-linked Haqqani network.
“Four of them were Uzbeks and two were Punjabi Taliban,” said a Pakistan intelligence official in Miranshah, referring to fighters from Pakistan’s central Punjab province who have taken shelter in North Waziristan.
Pakistani officials said fighters had parked their truck against the outer wall of the compound. “Both compound and truck were completely destroyed. Local informers told us that both are still on fire,” he said.
The US, which had not conducted a drone attack in Pakistan since December 25, 2013, has not commented.
The missile strike comes after 36 people were killed in an attack on Karachi’s international airport on Sunday and early Monday.
The Pakistan Taliban and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, which operates in Pakistan’s northwest, said they carried out the attack
“Our brother organisation, IMU, played role in the attack on the Karachi airport,” a Taliban spokesman told the AP news agency on Wednesday.