Missle strikes meeting of Arabs in Pakistan tribal region

Reuters/NY Times:

A missile struck a house in a Pakistani region known as being a safe haven for al Qaeda early on Thursday, killing 13 suspected militants including foreigners, intelligence officials and residents said.

The attack took place near Kaloosha village in the South Waziristan tribal region on the Afghan border.

"The blast shook the entire area," said resident Behlool Khan.

A security official said he believed the missile was fired by U.S. forces who are operating in neighbouring Afghanistan, and the house belonged to a Pashtun tribesman, Sher Mohammad Malikkheil, known as Sheroo, who is believed to have links with militants.

"Ten people, most of them believed to be of Arab origin, were killed and seven wounded," said an intelligence official, who declined to be identified.

Another intelligence official later revised the death toll to 13 and said it included three Pakistanis.

He said the house, about 25 km (16 miles) inside Pakistan's border and opposite an American base in Afghanistan, was rented out a couple of months ago.

U.S. forces have fired missiles at militants on the Pakistani side of the border several times in recent years, most recently on Jan. 28 when one of Osama bin Laden's top lieutenants, Abu Laith al-Libi, was killed in a strike in North Waziristan.

That missile was believed to have been fired by a U.S. pilotless drone.

...

It was certainly a quick response to Zawahiri's latest tape complaining about the previous attack that took out al Libi their number three man. If he was not in the house, he is probably sputtering with rage today.

The jihadis sanctuary is suddenly much less secure and the new border base that the US has set up in Afghanistan a few miles from the latest target is getting results that will be hard for al Qaeda to ignore. It is likely to push their operations even further from the border and it is also likely to prompt suicidal attacks on the base. Either way it has to debilitate al Qaeda and the Taliban operations in Afghanistan.

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