A senior army official said that two missiles fired from a U.S. drone hit a compound in Dattakhel town near the Afghan border, killing four suspected militants.
This was the first U.S. drone strike in Pakistan’s tribal belt after a two-month break.
Fourteen suspected militants were killed in two U.S. drone strikes in June in the adjoining Shawal valley.
More than 3,450 people have been killed in over 400 drone strikes in Pakistan since 2004. According to international think tanks and human rights groups, including Amnesty international and the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, 70 percent of drone victims were unarmed civilians.
Despite Pakistan’s public objections to the U.S. drone strikes, it is rumored to have given tacit approval to the ongoing controversial operations. Pakistan has also developed its own drone to use in the militant-hit northwestern tribal belt.
Author: Aamir Latif
[Photo: Hundreds of supporters of Pakistani party Jamaat-e-Islami carry placards and shout slogans during a protest against US drone attacks in the Pakistani tribal region, on November 8, 2013 on a main Peshawar highway leading to the northeastern Torkhum border, a key NATO supply route, in Peshawar, Pakistan. Photographer: Mohamed Iqbal/Anadolu Agency]
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