Pakistan Says U.S. Drone Strike Kills 4
PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Four people have been killed in northwestern Pakistan in an American drone attack on a vehicle, government officials said Friday.
The officials said missiles fired late Thursday night from a drone operated by the C.I.A. hit a moving vehicle in Datta Khel Bazar in the North Waziristan tribal region, which is a redoubt of local and foreign militants. "Four men inside the vehicle were killed," a tribal official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The nationality of those killed was not immediately clear. The vehicle exploded after it was hit by two missiles, leaving the bodies charred and beyond recognition.
But an intelligence official, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity, gave a conflicting account of the strike and said that only one person was killed.
The drone strike took place at 11:30 p.m. on Thursday, according to the official of the tribal administration, who noted that it was very unusual for people to move in the volatile region at night. "You don't find vehicles moving around so late at night in this part of the region," the official said by telephone Friday. A local warlord and Taliban commander, Hafiz Gul Bahadur, holds sway in Datta Khel but it was not clear if the drone strike had targeted his group.
The number of drone strikes have decreased dramatically in recent months. The last drone strike took place on March 10. Drone strikes by the United States are deeply resented in the country and seen as a breach of Pakistani sovereignty. The United Nations' special rapporteur on counterterrorism and human rights, Ben Emmerson, was quoted earlier this month as also saying that the drone strikes violate Pakistan's sovereignty.
The drone strike comes a day after a car bomb ripped through a refugee camp, killing 17 people, including three women. An explosives-laden car blew up near the food distribution point of Jalozai refugee camp, 20 miles southwest of Peshawar in the restive province of Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa. A spokesman of the Pakistani Taliban denied that the group had carried out the attack.
Separately, Pakistani politicians were trying to end an impasse over naming the caretaker prime minister, who would steer the country till the general elections scheduled for May 11. An eight-member parliamentary committee met in Islamabad on Friday to deliberate over possible candidates, which include a former justice and a former banker.
If a consensus is not reached by Friday evening, the country's election commission would step in to nominate the caretaker prime minister.
"We will uphold the spirt of the Parliament," Khurshid Shah, a senior leader of Pakistan Peoples Party and member of the parliamentary committee told reporters outside the Parliament.
But Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, another member of the committee and a leader of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, seemed to indicate that differences persisted between the politicians. "No objection should be made if the Election Commission decides the matter. It will be constitutional," he said.
Salman Masood reported from Islamabad.
