US drone kills six in NWaziristan

MIRANSHAH: A US drone strike killed seven militants at a compound in Pakistan's tribal North Waziristan region Sunday, security officials said.

The compound was located by a road in Shewa district about 40 kilometres (25 miles) northeast of the region's main town of Miranshah.

The drone fired four missiles at the compound and two vehicles parked outside were also destroyed, an intelligence official in Miranshah said.

"At least seven militants were killed and three wounded," a security official in Peshawar said, raising his earlier casualty estimate.

The casualties were confirmed by two other intelligence officials in Miranshah.

The strike is the latest in a series of US operations in the region.

Security officials said last week that a drone strike had killed five German militants.

Pakistani authorities have reported 27 drone attacks that have killed more than 150 people since September 3.

Pakistan has said there is no justification for the drone strikes, describing them as "counter-productive" and a violation of the country's sovereignty.

The United States does not as a rule confirm drone attacks, but its military and the Central Intelligence Agency operating in Afghanistan are the only forces that deploy the pilotless aircraft in the region.

Officials in Washington say previous drone strikes have killed a number of high-value targets, including the former Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud.

Taliban militants have launched a string of attacks on NATO supply vehicles in Pakistan in the past week to avenge the drone strikes.

Pakistani Taliban on Sunday claimed responsibility for the latest attack on a NATO supply convoy in the southwest and vowed these would continue until the US drone strikes stopped.

Gunmen on Saturday torched at least 29 oil tankers in southwest Pakistan, the sixth attack in just over a week on vehicles carrying supplies for the 152,000-strong foreign forces fighting in Afghanistan.

Pakistani officials said on Sunday they had reopened the main land route for NATO supplies to Afghanistan and officials at the Torkham border in the northwest Khyber region, closed in a response to a NATO helicopter incursion.