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 Fifteen suspected militants have been killed and 30 wounded in an attack by unmanned US drone aircraft on Taliban targets near Pakistan's border with Afghanistan, Pakistan officials have said.
Missiles struck a suspected training facility in an area controlled by Baitullah Mehsud, the Pakistani Taliban leader and al-Qaeda ally, in parts of South Waziristan on Friday, a Pakistani intelligence spokesperson said. A suspected militant hide-out in Kokat Khel was also hit. Up to 11 people were also reported to have been killed in an attack by Pakistani aircraft on two targets in North Waziristan. The attacks were the latest in more than 40 such raids by the United States against targets in the border area since last August. Narrow escape The raids came as the Pakistani military prepares for an offensive in South Waziristan against Mehsud, who has been blamed for a string of deadly suicide attacks across the country that have killed more than 100 people in the past month. The US has stepped up attacks on targets linked with Mehsud with missiles fired from unmanned drones. The Taliban leader last week narrowly escaped a missile attack on a funeral for militants killed in an earlier drone attack. Eighty people died in the strike, although Mehsud escaped unharmed. In Pakistan's Swat valley, the Pakistani military said it had driven out most pro-Taliban fighters after nearly three months of fighting. Bloodied cleavers The Pakistani government signed a peace deal in February with Sufi Mohammad, a pro-Taliban leader in Swat, in a bid to end 18-months of fighting in the northwest of the country. But the truce came to an end just two months later, when Taliban supporters moved into neighbouring Bunir district in April and the Pakistani military re-started its offensive. Around 2.5 million residents of Swat have fled their homes to avoid the conflict, triggering a humanitarian crisis as relatives and government-run camps struggle to cope.
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