Missiles from a US drone slammed into a mud house and killed six suspected militants in Pakistan’s rugged northwest on Thursday, officials said, as the Pakistani military said it had seized control of 80 percent of a key city from the Taliban.
Drone strikes in Pakistan resumed after a six-month hiatus, days before the military launched an air campaign on June 15 to drive Pakistani Taliban militants out of the remote border region of North Waziristan.
Thursday’s strike in the Datta Khel district killed six militants and injured two, security officials said. The site of the strike was about 45 km (28 miles) west of the regional capital of Miranshah, near the Afghan border.
A senior officer took reporters on a tour of the region on Wednesday to underscore what the military says is a successful offensive to bring under control 80 percent of Miranshah, North Waziristan’s main town.
The region, the base of some of the country’s most feared al Qaeda linked terrorists, has been sealed off and there is no way to verify the military’s accounts or casualty figures. But the presence of many senior officers during the tour suggested that the army had secured broad control over the area.
Reporters were led through sites ranging from dingy two-room shops to large buildings piled high with cylinders and explosives, all described as workplaces to manufacture bombs.
Also on display was a complex of a couple of dozen rooms with a courtyard, described as a training site for suicide bombers.
“North Waziristan had transformed into a hub and safe haven for terrorists of all colours and creeds,” General Zafarullah Khan, the region’s commander, said the military’s sprawling headquarters.
“But with the operation, 80 percent of Miranshah and the adjoining areas has been cleared.”
The army launched the offensive after months of failed negotiations between the government and the militants, puntuated by Taliban attacks. A brazen assault last month on the airport in the southern city of Karachi killed 34.
