TWO successive US drone strikes killed eight militants in northwest Pakistan on Tuesday in the remote tribal belt near the Afghan border, security officials said.In the first attack a US drone overnight fired two missiles killing five suspected Taliban in the lawless region of South Waziristan, a Taliban bolthole where Washington says Islamist fighters are hiding out and planning attacks on Western troops stationed in neighbouring Afghanistan.
"A missile from a US drone fired on a compound of local Taliban commander Irfan Mehsud and killed five militants and injured six," said a security official in the area, who declined to be named. A local administration official confirmed the toll.
The missiles targeted Sara Rogha, a village northeast of regional hub Wana and a stronghold of former Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, who was killed in a US drone strike in August.
The security official said the spy plane fired two missiles on the compound, adding that reports suggested three of the dead could be Uzbeks.
"The death toll may rise," he said. "The compound is completely destroyed and militants have surrounded the area."
The fatalities are impossible to verify independently. The US does not confirm drone strikes and the targets are deep in Taliban-controlled territory.
An intelligence official, who also refused to be named, said militants were pulling their dead from the debris. He said his reports suggested low-level insurgent commander Irfan Mehsud had survived.
In the second attack a US drone targeted a Taliban compound linked to the Haqqani network in North Waziristan, a Pakistani official said, an area where Washington says the militants and al-Qaeda fighters are hiding out and planning attacks on Western troops stationed in Afghanistan.
"The missile hit a house of an Afghan militant linked with Haqqani, three militants were confirmed dead," a security official said by telephone.
Intelligence officials in the area confirmed the attack and the death toll, saying that five militants were also wounded.
"The target was a house in Dande Darpakel on the outskirts of Miranshah," the official said.
Dande Darpakhel is a kilometre west of Miranshah, the main town in the tribal region of North Waziristan.
The Haqqani network is a powerful group based in northwest Pakistan closely linked to al-Qaeda and known for its ruthless and sophisticated attacks, including an assassination attempt on Afghan President Hamid Karzai in 2008.
It is led by former mujahedeen leader Jalaludin Haqqani, who was a hero of the resistance against Soviet occupation during the 1980s. He aligned himself with the Taliban in the 1990s and became an important insurgent leader in 2003.
US drone attacks are hitting the tribal belt with increasing frequency, as the United States tries to stem the flow of militants waging a deadly insurgency against some 100,000 foreign troops stationed in Afghanistan
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