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Suspected US Drones Kill 18 Militants in Pakistan

28 December 2010 01:22 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. Pakistani intelligence officials say suspected U.S. drones have attacked several militant targets in a tribal region bordering Afghanistan, killing 18 insurgents, APA reports quoting â€œThe Voice of Americaâ€.

The officials say the drones fired six missiles into the Mir Ali district in Pakistan’s North Waziristan region on Monday, hitting two vehicles and a building. They say most of the militants killed in the strikes were Pakistanis.

North Waziristan is a stronghold of Pakistani Taliban and al-Qaida militants who stage cross-border attacks on U.S.-led NATO forces in Afghanistan. The United States does not confirm drone attacks on Pakistan-based militants, but is the only nation operating the unmanned aircraft in the region.

Suspected U.S. drones have carried out about 100 strikes in Pakistani border regions this year, more than double last year’s figure.

The French news agency says it has recorded 640 deaths from drone attacks in Pakistan this year, up from 420 in 2009.

In another development, members of northwest Pakistan’s Mehsud tribe say the Taliban kidnapped 23 of their fellow tribesmen earlier this month to punish them for meeting with Pakistani army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani. The kidnapped tribesmen held talks with General Kayani in South Waziristan on December 7.

Pakistan’s military has been trying to rid the country’s northwestern regions of the Taliban. Tribal elders say militants took the tribesmen hostage after luring them to a meeting.

Elsewhere in northwestern Pakistan, the World Food Program has suspended distribution of food in a tribal region where a suicide bomber killed at least 45 people, including children, near a WFP center on Saturday.

The U.N. agency’s global media coordinator, Greg Barrow, told VOA on Sunday that the WFP temporarily stopped all operations in the Bajaur district for security reasons.

A female suicide bomber threw a hand grenade several hundred meters from the distribution center in the town of Khar before blowing herself up in a crowd of people waiting for food aid. The Pakistani Taliban has claimed responsibility for the bombing.