A series of US drone strikes across North and South Waziristan have left at least 28 people killed and a significant number of others wounded. Pakistani officials terms all of the slain “suspected militants,” as they always do in the case of US killings, but did not appear to have any information about the identities of any of them.
The drone attacks hit at least three distinct targets, all of them houses. Officials said that the house in Shaktoi, South Waziristan was a “suspected militant hideout,” though they did not identify the other two sites beyond them being in Nazai Narai, South Waziristan and Miramshah, North Waziristan.
Though such drone strikes were occasionally carried out for years, President Obama has dramatically escalated the number of attacks against Pakistan, with almost all of the strikes hitting North and South Waziristan Agencies.
Yet while officials are often quick to term the victims of the attacks “suspects” investigation beyond the initial attacks usually reveals otherwise, with only a handful of confirmed insurgents having been killed and several hundred apparent civilians killed in the scores of other attacks.