13 Killed in Missile Strike in North Waziristan
PESHAWAR: Thirteen people were killed and eight others injured in yet another attack by the US drones on Sham village of the North Waziristan Agency (NWA) on Friday.
In the first attack by the Central Intelligence Agency-operated unmanned aerial vehicles following the election of Barack Obama as the new US president on November 4, five Hellfire missiles were fired on the house of local tribesman Ghani Gul Wazir in Bachi Kellay, a hamlet near Sham village.
Official and tribal sources said five US spy planes had been hovering over South and North Waziristan agencies since Thursday morning. Tribal journalist Haji Mujtaba told The News from Miramshah, the headquarters of NWA, that the village attacked by the US drones was about 45 kilometres southeast of Mirali subdivision, far away from the Pak-Afghan border.
It is situated between South Waziristan’s Makeen and North Waziristan’s Razmak towns and is said to be close to the FR Bannu. Interestingly, the US aircraft attacked the Pakistani village at around 10:30 am but majority of the government and military officials based in the restive tribal region remained unaware of the strikes for about four hours. Officials and villagers in Razmak said none of them had heard any sound of the missile strike.