via Rick Rozoff at Stop NATO
ISLAMABAD: According to the eyewitness and news sources from the tribal area, the US troops on two helicopters conducted raid in Pakistan territory and killed at least 34 people in the region near Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
Although the US drones are frequently conducting strikes against militant targets in the tribal areas but raid of the US ground troops with help of helicopters is a rare incident, wherein over 34 people were statedly killed on Saturday night.
Two years back, in September, 2008, the US troops had conducted a similar raid across border and 20 people were in the raid, which had elicited strong criticism from Pakistan. Moreover,[text missing in original]
Two US drone strikes targeting vehicles killed eight people on Sunday in North Waziristan near the Afghan border, officials said. Both attacks took place in Asar village of Datta Khel town, some 50km (31 miles) west of Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan tribal district. “The US drone fired three missiles at the militants’ vehicle, killing four rebels,” a senior security official in the area said of the first strike.
Another senior security official in the area confirmed the strike and toll.
The second strike, also targeting a vehicle, killed three rebels in the same village. “Four missiles fired from a US drone on another vehicle which was going to the site of the first attack for rescue work, killing three militants,” a senior security official in the area said. The two strikes came little over 24 hours after a similar drone attack in the same Datta Khel area, which killed four militants on Saturday. The US has launched eighteen such drone attacks in just 23 days in North Waziristan.
More than 1,100 people have been killed in over 130 drone strikes in Pakistan since August 2008.
Suspected US drone aircraft carried out two missile strikes against a house and a vehicle in North Waziristan on Sunday, killing seven alleged militants, Pakistani intelligence officials said. The US is now suspected of conducting 19 such attacks this month, the most intense barrage since the strikes began in 2004. Most have targeted Datta Khel, part of the North Waziristan tribal area that is dominated by militants who regularly stage attacks against Nato troops in Afghanistan. In the first strike Sunday, a drone fired three missiles at a house in Lwara Mandi village in Datta Khel, killing three suspected militants, said the intelligence officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media.
Minutes later, a drone fired two missiles at a vehicle in the same area, killing four suspected militants, the officials said. The exact identities of the seven people killed in the attacks were not known, but most of this month’s strikes have targeted forces led by Jalaluddin Haqqani, a commander who was once supported by Pakistan and the US during the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan.—Agencies.
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