Pakistan: US Drone Strikes Kill Eight in North Waziristan

Slain Were Unidentified ‘Suspects’

by Jason Ditz, Antiwar.com, June 30, 2012

Print This | Share This

 

US drones attacked a house in the Shawal Valley, in North Waziristan Agency along the border with Afghanistan overnight, killing eight “suspected militants” who were, as usual, entirely unidentified by local officials.

Local officials said that they thought some of the slain might have been foreigners, but that the strikes had burned the house down and the bodies were so charred that there was no way to tell for certain who they were.

The area attacked is the domain of Hafiz Gul Bahadar, the leader of a local Taliban faction. There is no indication, beyond the location, that the people killed had anything to do with Bahadar, but that seems to be the assumption Pakistani officials are operating under.

This is the second time the Shawal Valley has been attacked in less than a week, with a Tuesday night attack against the valley burning another home to the ground and killing the six people inside. None of the victims of that attack were identified either.