PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) — A suspected US missile strike on Thursday killed at least five Taliban militants in a tribal area in northwest Pakistan known as a extremist stronghold, local officials said.
The strike was the latest targeting Taliban and Al-Qaeda operatives in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan -- most said to have been launched by CIA drones -- that have raised tensions between Washington and Islamabad.
A local security official told AFP that an unmanned CIA aircraft had fired three missiles in the Karikot area of South Waziristan -- the same spot where eight suspected militants were killed in a US drone strike 10 days ago.
One of the missiles struck a vehicle, killing five people inside, another security official said, adding those killed were known Taliban militants.
The other two missiles hit a hilltop house that was a known militant hideout in the area, but it was empty at the time of the strike, the officials said.
One militant was also wounded, they added.
"We rushed out of our homes," said resident Zar Wali, adding that locals had been panicked by the powerful explosions.
Smoke billowed from the house for hours after the strike, he said.
Pakistan has repeatedly protested to the US that the drone strikes violate its territorial sovereignty and deepen resentment among the 160 million people of the nuclear-armed Islamic nation.
President Asif Ali Zardari has promised zero tolerance for such violations, but some officials say there is a tacit understanding between the US and Pakistani militaries to allow such action.
US and Afghan officials say northwest Pakistan is a safe haven for Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants who infiltrated from Afghanistan after the fall of the Taliban regime in late 2001.
The suspected US strikes have continued despite a warning in November from Taliban militants based in tribal territory that any more would lead to reprisal attacks across Pakistan.
A US missile attack that same month killed Rashid Rauf, the alleged Al-Qaeda mastermind of a 2006 transatlantic airplane bombing plot, as well as an Egyptian Al-Qaeda operative, security officials have said.
More than two dozen similar strikes have been carried out since August 2008, killing more than 200 people, most of them militants.
Islamabad has come under increased pressure to quash extremist activity within its borders, with Washington and Kabul saying it has not done enough to stop militants crossing the border to attack US and NATO troops in Afghanistan.
Pakistan rejects those accusations, pointing to its operation against militants in the semi-autonomous Bajaur region bordering Afghanistan. The military says more than 1,500 rebels have been killed there since August.
But operations in Bajaur and the nearby Swat valley, where Taliban-linked militants are waging a violent campaign to institute harsh Islamic law, have been scaled back in recent months.
Four civilians were killed in Bajaur on Thursday when militants fired rockets at a local government compound in Khar, the area's main town, an official said.
Last week, senior Pakistani security and defence officials said some troops had been shifted from the tribal areas to the eastern border with India, amid simmering tensions with New Delhi in the wake of the Mumbai attacks.
India has blamed those attacks on the Pakistan-based militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, which is fighting New Delhi's rule in divided Kashmir.
Any major shift of Pakistani troops out of the tribal areas would likely spark concern in Washington and other Western capitals, as it could open the door to more attacks on foreign forces in Afghanistan.
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