PESHAWAR, Pakistan — At least four people were killed and four others injured in a drone attack on a house near the Pakistani-Afghan border early Wednesday, residents in the region said.
Tuesday's strike came just six days after President Obama unveiled his new drone policy, curtailing their use to limit civilian casualties and moving oversight of the program from the C.I.A. to the Pentagon. U.S. officials do not comment on specific attacks, but the C.I.A. has carried out hundreds of drone strikes in Pakistan that have killed thousands of people.
Residents reached by phone in Miramshah, North Waziristan, said the drone attack happened around 3 a.m., hitting a house in nearby Chashma Pull and killing four people. Local militants immediately cordoned off the area and retrieved the dead and the wounded, one resident said.
A tribal administration official in Peshawar responsible for security in Pakistan's federally administered tribal regions said at least three people apparently died in the attack.
"This is an initial report," said the official, who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to speak to reporters. "We don't know the identities of the dead and wounded but so far it emerges that all were tribal people. We have not heard of any foreigner having been killed or wounded so far."
Authorities in the militant-infested North Waziristan region often have to rely on local tribal contacts for information.
Wednesday's strike, coming just days before the newly elected government in Pakistan takes over, suggests that Washington is not likely to completely halt such attacks, which it sees as an effective tactic in rooting out Al Qaeda from the tribal region along the Pakistani-Afghan border.
The incoming prime minister, Mian Nawaz Sharif, has said he plans to engage the United States in "serious" negotiations to put an end to drone strikes, which Pakistan says violates its sovereignty.
29 May, 2013
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Source: http://news.google.com/news/url?sa=t&fd=R&usg=AFQjCNH-bWbIsuWjjr8zcdq9eVDnXKDzwg&url=http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/30/world/asia/drone-strike-hits-near-pakistani-afghan-border.html
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