US missile strikes kill Islamist militants
Source: Agencies |
August 11, 2011, Thursday
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Print Edition
Print Edition
US missiles killed 20 Islamist militants in northwestern Pakistan yesterday, most of them members of an insurgent network fighting the US presence in Afghanistan, according to Pakistani intelligence officials.
Two missiles hit a house close to the town of Miran Shah in North Waziristan, a militant hot spot close to the border with Afghanistan.
The officials said 14 of the dead were Afghan militants belonging to the Haqqani network, a Taliban-linked militant faction fighting the US in Afghanistan.
Six were Pakistani militants supporting the group, which the US regards as one of its deadliest foes in Afghanistan, they said.
Locals and rights groups say civilians are regularly killed in the strikes. There are never public investigations into those claims.
Washington began the missile program targeting al-Qaida and the Taliban on the Pakistani side of the border in 2005, but stepped up the pace in 2008, and again when Barack Obama became president. At peak times, there can be as many as three or four strikes a week.
US officials do not publicly talk about the covert, CIA-run program, but privately say it is crucial to keeping al-Qaida under pressure in one of its main international sanctuaries, as well as weakening insurgent factions in Afghanistan.
But the program is a source of tension between the US and Pakistan, which claims the strikes fuel militancy in the country.
Over the past six months, ties between the two nations have grown increasingly strained, complicating US goals for withdrawing from Afghanistan.
Two missiles hit a house close to the town of Miran Shah in North Waziristan, a militant hot spot close to the border with Afghanistan.
The officials said 14 of the dead were Afghan militants belonging to the Haqqani network, a Taliban-linked militant faction fighting the US in Afghanistan.
Six were Pakistani militants supporting the group, which the US regards as one of its deadliest foes in Afghanistan, they said.
Locals and rights groups say civilians are regularly killed in the strikes. There are never public investigations into those claims.
Washington began the missile program targeting al-Qaida and the Taliban on the Pakistani side of the border in 2005, but stepped up the pace in 2008, and again when Barack Obama became president. At peak times, there can be as many as three or four strikes a week.
US officials do not publicly talk about the covert, CIA-run program, but privately say it is crucial to keeping al-Qaida under pressure in one of its main international sanctuaries, as well as weakening insurgent factions in Afghanistan.
But the program is a source of tension between the US and Pakistan, which claims the strikes fuel militancy in the country.
Over the past six months, ties between the two nations have grown increasingly strained, complicating US goals for withdrawing from Afghanistan.
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