Suspected US drone kills Pakistan Taliban chief's wife

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PESHAWAR, August 5 (Reuters): The wife of Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud was killed on Wednesday in a missile strike by a suspected U.S. drone in the South Waziristan tribal region, a relative told Reuters.
It was uncertain whether Mehsud was present when the missiles struck a house belonging to his father-in-law in Makeen, an almost inaccessible village in the heart of Mehsud lands on the Afghan border.
The United States has placed a $5 million reward on the head of Mehsud, an ally of al Qaeda widely regarded in Pakistan as Public Enemy No. 1.
Shortly before 1.00 a.m. (1900 GMT Tuesday), two missiles struck the sprawling, high-walled compound of Ikramuddin Mehsud, a cleric whose daughter, Baitullah Mehsud, got married last November.
A security official in the region said two militants were killed. The relative said Mehsud's wife was also among the dead.
"I confirm that the woman who was killed in the strike was the wife of Baitullah Mehsud," the relative, who did not want to be identified, told Reuters by telephone. He said four children were among the wounded.
Ikramuddin's daughter was Mehsud's second wife. Mehsud has no children by his first wife. Under Islamic custom, a man can have four wives.
Meanwhile : Furious Afghan villagers protested in Kandahar today by carrying the bodies of four brothers, three of them children, who they said were killed by US attack helicopters.
More than 100 men arrived with the corpses from nearby Arghandab district, protesting that US forces trying to defeat a Taliban insurgency were killing the "innocent" and should leave Afghanistan.
The US military confirmed it had carried out night strikes against militant targets and were investigating allegations that civilians were killed.