Catching up on their “one a day” average of drone strikes against Pakistan’s tribal area, the US launched four separate drone strikes against North Waziristan today, killing at least 11 and leaving an unknown number of others wounded.
The first attack destroyed a home in the Datta Khel region, while the second two strikes each destroyed vehicles. The final attack hit the rubble from the house, killing two people who were trying to pull people from the house.
The Pakistani officials who reported the attacks to the media termed everyone killed, including the people in the final strike as “militant suspects,” but as has been so often the case there was no indication of any “high value” targets, or anyone confirmed to have major ties to any particular group.
President Obama has repeatedly approved massive escalations to the US drone strikes, which were a comparative rarity during the waning years of the Bush Administration. Well over a thousand people have been killed in the drone strikes, though only a few dozen were ever confirmed to have ties to the militants, and large numbers were innocent civilians.
