Early on Wednesday, five US drones were flying over Miranshah, the capital of the North Waziristan, before firing two missiles at a house in the city, Xinhua reported.
Wednesday’s airstrike was the first US drone attack since the 25th NATO summit, during which US President Barack Obama reportedly noted that the US and Pakistan were making “diligent progress” on reopening the border crossings used to transfer NATO supplies to landlocked Afghanistan.
Islamabad closed the border crossings in November 2011, after 24 Pakistani soldiers were killed in US-led airstrikes on two checkpoints on the Afghan border.
Washington claims that its airstrikes target militants crossing the border with Afghanistan, but local sources say civilians have been the main victims of the attacks.
Pakistanis have held many demonstrations to condemn the United States’ violations of their national sovereignty.
On January 31, President Barack Obama confirmed that the US uses the unmanned drones in Pakistan and other countries.
In reply to questions about the use of the assassination drones by his administration in a chat with web users on Google+ and YouTube, the US president said, “a lot of these strikes have been in the FATA” — Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas.
MHB/HGL
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