48 militants killed in US drone attacks

[Naveed Yaseen]

DERA ISMAIL KHAN (July 09 2009): US missiles slammed into militant targets in the stronghold of Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud on Wednesday, killing up to 48 alleged fighters, security officials said. The attacks - the second and third suspected US drone strikes in just over 24 hours against Mehsud's South Waziristan stronghold - come with Pakistan widely expected to launch a ground offensive against the warlord.

Wednesday's first missile strike flattened an alleged training centre for Islamist extremists in South Waziristan, killing eight militants in the early hours of the morning, security officials said. In the late afternoon, another suspected drone targeted a convoy of vehicles carrying militants in a Mehsud stronghold in the same semi-autonomous tribal area, which lies on the border with Afghanistan, Pakistani officials said.

"The death toll has risen to 40 and five vehicles were also destroyed - targeted by a US drone in Janata area of South Waziristan," one security official told AFP after releasing an earlier figure of 25 militants dead. Another security official and a tribesman from the area confirmed the same statistic, but a third senior-ranking official put the death toll at between 30 and 40.

The United States military does not, as a rule, confirm drone attacks, but its armed forces and the CIA operating in Afghanistan are the only forces that deploy unmanned aircraft in the region. The first strike hit about 35 kilometres (20 miles) north-east of the main town Wana and the second about 50 kilometres to its north-east. It was not immediately clear whether any high-value targets were killed.

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