Tue Aug 9, 2011 11:24PM GMT
A US drone (file photo)
A non-UN-sanctioned US drone attack has killed at least seven people and wounded three others in Pakistan's northwestern tribal belt.
Officials and local residents said that a US drone on Wednesday fired two missiles at a house in Kharwani area near the town of Miranshah in North Waziristan tribal district, a Press TV correspondent reported.
The missiles destroyed a house and a vehicle.
The CIA's unmanned aircraft carried out six strikes in Pakistan during July, leading to the death of at least 73 people, Conflict Monitoring Centre (CMC) said in its monthly report.
CMC is an Islamabad-based independent research center which monitors the drone attacks in Pakistan.
At least 63 people lost their lives in four drone attacks on July 11 and 12. June, however, was the deadliest month of 2011 with more than 117 people killed in twelve strikes, the report said.
A total number of 443 people have been killed in the first seven months of the current year, according to the CMC report.
The focus of most of the CIA attacks has been North Waziristan. The intelligence agency carried out more than 132 attacks in Pakistan in 2010 and only nine of them were in South Waziristan, the report added.
The aerial raids, initiated by former US President George W. Bush in 2004, have escalated under President Barack Obama.
Washington claims the airstrikes target militants, but most of the attacks result in civilian casualties.
The United Nations says the US-operated drone strikes in Pakistan pose a growing challenge to the international rule of law.
MA/MGH/MSH/MB
0 comments:
Post a Comment