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Sources: Suspected US Drone Strike Targets Pakistani Taliban Militants


FILE - Militants of the Pakistani Taliban patrol in their then-stronghold of Shawal in the Pakistani tribal region of South Waziristan, Aug. 5, 2012.
FILE - Militants of the Pakistani Taliban patrol in their then-stronghold of Shawal in the Pakistani tribal region of South Waziristan, Aug. 5, 2012.

A suspected U.S. drone strike killed several Pakistani Taliban militants in North Waziristan close to the Afghanistan border, one militant commander and intelligence sources said on Thursday, in a rare strike on Pakistani soil.

If confirmed, the airstrike, which happened on Wednesday, would only be the second drone attack inside the nuclear-armed nation since U.S. President Donald Trump took office in January.

Abdullah Wazirstani, spokesman for North Waziristan Taliban, a group linked to the Pakistani Taliban, said the strike killed three civilian "laborers" and seven militants from the Pakistani Taliban, which is also known as TTP.

Malik Waheedullah, a local tribal leader, told Reuters he saw two missiles strike a mountain home which caught fire. "I drove away as fast as I could," he said.

One Pakistani intelligence official and government source said they believed the strike to have been a U.S. drone attack.

U.S. officials did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

North Waziristan was a Taliban stronghold until 2014, when Pakistan's military launched a major offensive against the group and pushed many of its fighters across the border into Afghanistan.

Sources from the TTP identified one of the dead militants as Abdur Rahman, a senior commander of the Pakistani Taliban.

U.S. drone attacks inside Pakistan have become rare over the past few years. In its last high-profile attack inside Pakistan, the United States last May killed Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour in the southwestern province of Baluchistan.

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    Reuters

    Reuters is a news agency founded in 1851 and owned by the Thomson Reuters Corporation based in Toronto, Canada. One of the world's largest wire services, it provides financial news as well as international coverage in over 16 languages to more than 1000 newspapers and 750 broadcasters around the globe.

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