U.S. Drone Strike Kills at Least 6 in Pakistan

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/29/world/asia/us-drone-strike-kills-at-least-6-in-pakistan.html

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ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—At least six militants were killed and four others injured after the latest American drone strike in Pakistan’s restive tribal belt on Sunday, Pakistani intelligence officials and militant commanders said.

The drones fired two missiles at a group of men shortly after they crossed the border from Afghanistan, where local commanders said they had been fighting American and Afghan forces.

An intelligence official in the area, who was authoritzed to speak only on the condition of anonymity, said preliminary reports indicated that a senior commander with a Pakistani Taliban faction led by Gul Bahadur, which has links with Al Qaeda, had been killed in the attack.

There have been 15 C.I.A.-led drone strikes in Pakistan so far this year, compared with 47 in 2012, according to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, which monitors the strikes. Up to 124 people have been killed, the group said, including up to 4 civilians.

The latest attack took place in the Valley, a remote border district of thickly forested mountains that has long been a haven for various Islamist groups, including the Pakistani Taliban and Al Qaeda.

In recent years it has also been used by the Haqqani network, an Islamist group that has carried out high-profile attacks on coalition forces in Afghanistan.

One militant commander, speaking by phone and on the condition he not be identified, said that on Sunday the group of 10 fighters had been returning from Afghanistan after a week of battle against coalition forces in that country’s Paktika Province.

“They were on foot when they came under attack,” he said.

The United States has continued to carry out drone strikes in North Waziristan, the main hub of Islamist militancy in the region, despite vocal opposition from the Pakistani government and human rights groups.

Pakistani officials say the attacks violate their country’s sovereignty, result in civilian deaths and aid in the recruitment of fresh militants. American officials privately dispute those claims, saying the civilian death toll has dropped as strikes have grown more accurate in recent years.

<em>Declan Walsh contributed reporting from London.</em>