JULY 7 : A US missile strike pulverised a compound in a stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban warlord Baitullah Mehsud Tuesday, killing at least 12 foreign and local militants, security officials said.
The strike, carried out by a suspected unmanned US aircraft, destroyed a compound in the Zangara area of South Waziristan — part of Pakistan's tribal belt on the Afghan border.
One missile struck a Taliban hideout in the hamlet of Chinakai, killing foreign and local militants, said a Pakistani security official on condition of anonymity in a reference to suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban militants.
It was not immediately clear whether any high-value target was present at the time of the strike.
Suspected US attacks and Pakistani air strikes have increasingly targeted strongholds of Mehsud, chief of an umbrella organisation of Pakistani Taliban known as the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan.
'Sixteen militants were killed and at least eight others wounded in the missile strike. Four among the dead are foreigners and the remaining are locals,' one security official told AFP.
The nationalities of the foreigners were not immediately known.
Another security official corroborated his story and said 12 bodies had already been pulled from under the rubble of the compound, which was destroyed in the strike.
Pakistani troops have been pressing a two-month battle to dislodge Taliban insurgents in three northwest districts and have carried out air raids in South Waziristan ahead of a widely expected ground assault against Mehsud.
Tuesday's attack came four days after another suspected US drone targeted the hideout of Noor Wali, a commander allied to Mehsud elsewhere in South Waziristan, and killed at least seven militants.
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