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MIRANSHAH, Pakistan (AFP) – A US drone missile attack Monday killed four militants in a remote Pakistani tribal town bordering Afghanistan, officials said. The missile targeted a militant vehicle in Toori Khel village in North Waziristan region, they said. "Four militants were killed," a local government official said, requesting anonymity. He added the number of wounded was not immediately known.

Two senior al Qaeda leaders are among those thought to have been killed in the Sept. 8 Predator strike in Pakistan's Taliban-controlled tribal agency of North Waziristan. Ilyas Kashmiri and Mustafa al Jaziri may have been killed during the strike in the village of Machi Khel near Mir Ali. Unmanned US strike aircraft are reported to have hit a car and a madrassa in the attack, The News reported. Initially five Uzbeks from the Islamic Jihad Group were thought to have been killed, but the report was revised to two Arab al Qaeda members, three Punjabi jihadis, and two or...

MIRANSHAH, Pakistan (Reuters) – A suspected U.S. drone fired missiles into a hideout of Taliban militants in Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal region on Monday, killing five militants, intelligence officials and residents said. The attack took place near Mir Ali town, a major sanctuary for militants linked to al Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan's tribal lands on the Afghan border. "The militants have cordoned off the area and no one is allowed to go to the site of the attack," a resident, who did not want to be identified, told Reuters by telephone. An intelligence official said a fortress-like house...

ISLAMABAD – Helicopter gunships destroyed a training camp for suicide bombers in Pakistan's northwestern Swat Valley, killing six Taliban fighters in an area the government had already declared clear of militants, an official said Saturday. The camp's trainees — including teenagers — were responsible for at least three attacks in recent weeks, an army spokesman said. Pakistan's army says it is restoring security in Swat and surrounding areas after a three-month offensive wrested the valley back from Taliban control, but suicide attacks and skirmishes continue, with reports Saturday of scattered violence killing at least 12 more suspected militants.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) – A US missile strike from a drone aircraft Thursday killed at least eight Taliban militants in a tribal area of northwest Pakistan bordering Afghanistan, Pakistani officials said. The strike was followed hours later by a suicide attack in the northwestern tribal region of Khyber that officials said killed 21 policemen. The US strike "targeted a Taliban compound in Kaniguram village of South Waziristan, killing eight militants and wounding six others," a senior security official told AFP. Another official confirmed the casualties and said that the US drone fired two missiles, but added it was not immediately...

ISLAMABAD – A suspected missile attack early Friday destroyed a militant hideout in northwest Pakistan, killing at least seven people, two intelligence officials said. The officials said some people also were wounded when the two missiles hit a compound in the village of Dande Darpa Khel, near Miran Shah in troubled tribal region of North Waziristan. ... The area is also believed to be frequented by associates of an Afghan Taliban leader, Siraj Haqqani, whose network is powerful in eastern Afghanistan.

Three groups of Taliban in S Waziristan: Turkistan Bathni, Haji Tehsil Khan Wazir and Ikhals Khan Mehsud have formed a new group named Abdullah Mehsud. The new Ameer of the group is Ikhlas Khan AKA Waziristan Baba, 42 years old, he joined Abdullah Mehsud three years ago. Offices of the new group have been set up in SWA areas including Gomal, Umar Adda, Jandola, Pang, and Sheikh Autar and more offices will be opened in other areas. Ikhlas Khan said they will avenge the killings of innocent people, adding, ‘Those who are playing gory games with our brothers and sisters,...

ISLAMABAD: A missile, believed to have been fired by a US drone aircraft, hit a house in North Waziristan and killed five suspected Taliban militants, intelligence officials said on Friday. ‘The missile strike took place in Bahadur Kaley village, 30 kilometres south of Miranshah. One missile was fired from the US drone, which targeted a Taliban stronghold,’ one security official told AFP. Resident Ahmad Raza told AFP he heard a loud bang and that Taliban in the area are saying five of their colleagues are dead. ‘The missile strike took place in Bahadur Kaley village, 30 kilometres (19 miles) south...

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan – A suspected U.S. missile strike hit a Taliban communication center in the country's northwest late Friday, killing at least three people and wounding three more, intelligence officials said. The attack was the fifth in two weeks by attributed to American unmanned drone aircraft targeting Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud and his network of militants. Three intelligence officials said the drone fired a pair of missiles at the communication center in the Painda Khel region of South Waziristan. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

The leader of Taliban militants in Pakistan's Swat district has been critically wounded and is close to death, the BBC has learned. The information about Maulana Fazlullah confirms statements from senior government and security officials. A former village cleric, he founded the branch of the Taliban movement which eventually took over the Swat valley. After a recent offensive, Pakistan's army says it has almost defeated rebels in that sector of the north-west. It has been battling Taliban militants there for about two months and the government says it has regained control of the region. 'No medicine' The information about Maulana...

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan – Suspected U.S. drones launched two missile attacks on Taliban targets in the South Waziristan tribal region on Wednesday, killing at least 45 militants in the latest in a barrage of strikes close to the Afghan border, intelligence officials said. The army said the top Taliban commander in another area of the northwest, the scenic Swat Valley, was wounded in a Pakistani airstrike. It gave no more details. South Waziristan lies close to the Afghan border and is the stronghold of Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud. Pakistan's military is also bombing and firing mortars at insurgent...

WANA, Pakistan (Reuters) – A U.S. drone aircraft fired missiles on Friday into Pakistan's South Waziristan region, killing 10 militants, officials said, ahead of an expected Pakistani military offensive in the area. The United States, facing a growing Afghan insurgency, began stepping up drone attacks on militant strongholds in lawless enclaves on the Pakistani side of the border a year ago despite Pakistani complaints. Three missiles were fired at militant hideouts in an area near the Afghan border controlled by Pakistani Taliban leader and al Qaeda ally Baitullah Mehsud, killing 10 militants and wounding seven, two intelligence agency officials said....

The US carried out its second Predator airstrike inside South Waziristan today. Unmanned Predator aircraft killed more than 65 Taliban fighters in a follow-on attack near the headquarters for Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud. The Predator strike aircraft fired three Hellfire missiles as Taliban fighters gathered for a funeral of Khog Wali, a leader in Baitullah's army in South Waziristan who was among six Taliban fighters killed in the first US airstrike earlier today. Commander Sangeen, a Taliban commander from Afghanistan, was reported to be among those killed in the strike at the funeral. Predators are said to have fired...

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) – A U.S. drone attacked militants in Pakistan in Tuesday, killing at least 45 of them, Pakistani intelligence officials said.

WANA, Pakistan (Reuters) – Pakistani forces used aircraft and artillery on Sunday as they stepped up an assault aimed at eliminating Pakistani Taliban commander Baituallah Mehsud. Security forces have secured much of the scenic Swat Valley, northwest of Islamabad, in the past six weeks and the military plans to extend its offensive to al Qaeda ally Mehsud, holed up in the South Waziristan region near the Afghan border. The military action came after Taliban gains raised fears for the future of nuclear-armed Pakistan, a vital ally for the United States as it strives to defeat al Qaeda and stabilize Afghanistan....

ISLAMABAD – Pakistani ground troops moved into Taliban-controlled areas Friday and engaged in the first gunbattle of a new offensive in the volatile northwest, as an aerial and artillery bombardment pounded other targets. Officials said Friday's action did not represent the start of a full-scale operation in the tribal belt along the border with Afghanistan, but that most troops were now in place for when the orders came. The coming operation in South Waziristan, along with one winding down in the Swat Valley further north, could be a turning point in Pakistan's yearslong and sometimes halfhearted fight against militancy.

ISLAMABAD – Pakistan's army launched airstrikes and ferried in tanks and artillery as it confirmed Tuesday that it was preparing a major offensive against insurgents in al-Qaida and the Taliban's safest haven along the Afghan border. The highly anticipated military operation in South Waziristan is seen as a potential turning point in the yearslong and sometimes half-hearted fight against militancy in Pakistan. It could also help curb Taliban attacks on Western forces in neighboring Afghanistan. But the offensive in the lawless tribal region will also be the toughest yet for Pakistan's military, testing both its fighting capability and the government's...

Taliban head 'must be eliminated' The Taliban have stepped up their attacks in Pakistan in recent weeks Pakistan's army chief has said the head of the Taliban in Pakistan "must be eliminated".General Ashfaq Kayani said Baitullah Mehsud, who has his stronghold in the tribal district of South Waziristan, was "not fighting for Islam". His comments come as a provincial governor said an offensive to target militants was imminent. Neither man said when such an assault might begin. Baitullah Mehsud's group is blamed for a string of deadly attacks in Pakistan.

ISLAMABAD (AFP) – Pakistan has launched a "full-fledged" assault against Taliban in the lawless northwest tribal belt and will continue until all militants are eliminated, the provincial governor said Sunday. Security forces are already locked in a seven-week-long campaign against the insurgents in three other northwest districts, and last week the offensive spread into the semi-autonomous tribal zone along the Afghan border. "The government has launched a full-fledged operation in the tribal areas including Waziristan," Owais Ahmad Ghani, governor of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), told a press conference in Islamabad. "Operations will continue until the elimination of the...

A US missile strike killed five people in the tribal area of South Waziristan here Sunday, report said. The attack hit in the Laddha region of South Waziristan, where Washington alleges Al-Qaeda and Taliban rebels who fled Afghanistan after the 2001 US-led invasion are holed up, plotting attacks on Western targets.