US missile strikes kill 24 in Pak tribal region
Saturday, 14 March 2009
PESHAWAR, Mar 13 (Reuters): Taliban militants recovered 24 bodies and were searching for more Friday, hours after suspected US drones destroyed a camp in Pakistan's northwestern region, militants and officials said.
Four missiles believed to have been fired by at least two pilotless US drone aircraft Thursday evening hit a militant hideout and training camp in the Kurram tribal region on the Afghan border.
Soon after the attack a villager in the Barjo area said 14 people had been killed but an intelligence official and a Taliban official said Friday the toll had gone up as militants sifted through the rubble of the seven-room training compound.
"We've so far found 24 bodies in the debris and we're still looking," a Taliban official in the ethnic Pashtun region said by telephone. He declined to be identified.
Four missiles believed to have been fired by at least two pilotless US drone aircraft Thursday evening hit a militant hideout and training camp in the Kurram tribal region on the Afghan border.
Soon after the attack a villager in the Barjo area said 14 people had been killed but an intelligence official and a Taliban official said Friday the toll had gone up as militants sifted through the rubble of the seven-room training compound.
"We've so far found 24 bodies in the debris and we're still looking," a Taliban official in the ethnic Pashtun region said by telephone. He declined to be identified.