18 January 2010 / REUTERS, PESHAWAR
A US drone aircraft fired missiles in Pakistan’s South Waziristan region on the Afghan border, killing at least 15 militants on Sunday, Pakistani security officials said.
The United States has stepped up pilotless drone strikes in Pakistan’s tribal regions since a Dec. 30 suicide bombing killed seven CIA employees at a US base in neighboring Afghanistan. Now the death toll is 15. It could rise further. People are still busy removing rubble,” a senior security official told Reuters. Most of the casualties were foreign fighters, he added. Ten days after the Afghanistan attack by a Jordanian double agent -- the second bloodiest in the agency’s history -- Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud appeared sitting beside the suicide bomber in a farewell video. The bomber said he would avenge the death of a Taliban leader killed in a drone strike last year and called for attacks in and outside the United States.
