25 killed in North Waziristan drone strike

ISLAMABAD(PAN border on Friday, officials and residents said.

At least three women and five children were among were among the dead, they said, adding 10 missiles were fired into a building in the area, 25 miles northeast of Miranshah, the agency headquarters.

The latest missile attack, which came two days after US Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Mike Mullen’s visit to Islamabad, targeted a house in Spinwam, political administration official Naib Khan told Pajhwok Afghan News.

In an interview with the widely-circulated Dawn newspaper on Thursday, the top US military official expressed concern over continuing links between Pakistan’s powerful spy service, ISI members.

A Miranshah-based intelligence official, who did not want to be named, said more than a dozen people were killed and 10 others wounded when the CIA-operated pilotless aircraft hit the compound, which was used by a Taliban commander named Hafiz Gul Bahadar.

Malik Mumtaz, a tribal elder from Spinwam, said that they had retrieved 25 dead bodies from the rubble. The victims included women and children, he said, fearing the toll could go up.

The house was razed as a result of the missile raid, according to resident Habib Gul, who put the death toll at 21. Fighters surrounded the scene soon after the attack, he added.

Elsewhere in the northwest, hundreds of fighters stormed a checkpoint in the Lower Dir district, killing 14 policemen. The brazen assault on the security post in Maskini Dara sparked a clash, which lasted several hours.