Add Your Photos and Video to This Story

16 Killed in Pakistan Air Strike

by jordan | March 16, 2008 at 10:07 am | 181 views | add comment

Rockets believed to have been fired from an unmanned US drone, has killed sixteen people, in Pakistan's tribal area, seven of whom were militants. The US considers Pakistan an ally in the "war on terror", but also launches attacks on its territory from within neighboring Afghanistan.

The attack took place in the South Waziristan region, where tribal militants are based, Reuters news agency reported residents as saying.

The Pakistani state TV report said several missiles destroyed the house of a suspected militant leader.

Reuters reported the military saying seven militants were among the dead.

"Initial reports suggest militants were hiding there and seven of them were killed and several wounded," an unnamed military official told the news agency.

A local tribesman said foreign militants were believed to be staying at the compound, in a village near Wana in South Waziristan.

"Militants have cordoned the blast site and are taking out bodies from the rubble," the tribesman told AFP news agency.

  Pakistani Taliban sealed the area after the attack
and did not allow any one to reach there, TV reports said, adding that local
tribesmen believed that the missiles were fired Afghanistan.

    They said that they had also seen a drone flying over
the area before the attack, the practice adopted by the U.S.-led coalition
forces in the past to strike inside the Pakistani territory.

    This is the second missile strike in the Pakistani
territory in less than 10 days.

    Pakistan has lodged a protest against the previous
strike in which several were killed after the NATO forces in Afghanistan
confirmed the attack in Pakistan.