2 Suspected US Missile Attacks Kill 45 in Pakistan

Source: Associated Press

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan (AP) -- Suspected U.S. drones launched two missile attacks on Taliban targets in the South Waziristan tribal region on Wednesday, killing at least 45 militants in the latest in a barrage of strikes close to the Afghan border, intelligence officials said. The army said the top Taliban commander in another area of the northwest, the scenic Swat Valley, was wounded in a Pakistani airstrike. It gave no more details.

South Waziristan lies close to the Afghan border and is the stronghold of Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud.
Pakistan's military is also bombing and firing mortars at insurgent targets in the region, saying it is chipping away at Mehsud's resistance before launching a ground offensive there to eliminate him. Mehsud is blamed for many of the bloodiest terrorist attacks in nuclear-armed Pakistan in recent years.

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Independent verification of the casualties and the target was not possible because the region is remote, dangerous and largely inaccessible to journalists. U.S. officials do not publicly comment on the strikes.

The latest strike brings to six the number of suspected American missile attacks in South Waziristan in just over two weeks, an uptick that suggests Washington is also trying to kill or weaken Mehsud and his followers in the run-up to the Pakistani campaign.


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And the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan morphs into the Great Afpak War.

Didn't somebody once say something about fighting land wars in Asia?

Pakistani government. It is in coordination with the Pakistani army's offensive against Taliban militants in the same region.

That's hardly an invasion and occupation of Pakistan.

But we have now prodded the Pakistanis to wage war on their Taliban, generating about 2 million refugees so far. You'll want to keep on an eye on those refugees. The Afghan Taliban grew out of the refugee camps of the 1980s.

And we are lobbing missiles into that country on a regular basis.

Maybe it would be better to call it the Pashtun War, but I bet the Pashtuns would call it something else, like a war of national liberation.

no matter who sanctions them.

............"counterproductive"?

Suspected US Missile Attacks kill ... (Suspected attacks, or suspected missiles, or suspected US?)

Suspected U.S. drones launched two missile attacks killing at least 45 militants (Who else in the region has "suspected" drones?)

Independent verification of the casualties and the target was not possible because the region is remote, dangerous and largely inaccessible to journalists. (So how did the AP come to the conclusion that "45" people had been killed, that they were "militants" and did not include women, children?)

The latest strike brings to six the number of suspected American missile attacks in South Waziristan (more suspicion by the AP dudes.)