DERA GHAZI KHAN, Pakistan — A suspected U.S. missile strike killed four purported militants in a Pakistani tribal region along the Afghan border early today, Pakistani intelligence officials said.
The two intelligence officials said three missiles hit a house overnight in the Kaza Panga village of the Azam Warsak area of South Waziristan tribal region. The exact identities of the dead were not immediately clear.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak to reporters on the record.
The strike was the first in about a month. Pakistanis have shown frustration with such attacks.
Pakistan’s tribal regions are key hide-outs for Taliban and al-Qaida fighters, and while Pakistan’s military has waged offensives in various parts of the northwest, the U.S. has also used drone-fired missiles to target insurgents.
Most of the missiles hit North Waziristan, a region populated with several militant groups whose primary focus is attacking U.S. and NATO troops across the border in Afghanistan. The Pakistani military has not taken action in that area because it says its priority is to go against militant groups launching attacks on Pakistan’s soil.
Nonetheless, the U.S. strikes do occasionally hit other parts of the tribal regions, typically South Waziristan.
The frequency of the missile strikes - typically more than one a week - had dropped noticeably since an American man, Raymond Allen Davis, was detained for shooting two Pakistanis on Jan. 27.
The U.S. rarely acknowledges the covert, CIA-run missile program.
Pakistan’s government publicly denounces the missile strikes as violations of its sovereignty but is believed to secretly support the program.
Information for this article was contributed from Peshawar, Pakistan, by Rasool Dawar of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 7 on 02/21/2011