Drone attack kills local al Qaeda leader

Four suspected militants and an alleged leader of al Qaeda were killed after a US drone hit a house in the Datta Khel area in North Waziristan in northwest Pakistan. The Reuters news agency quoted an official who said that "a pilotless drone hit the compound of suspected militants - we have information that four were killed and two injured."

Local media, including the country's leading newspapers, reported that one of the victims was Umer Farooq, a Pakistani citizen who worked as a spokesman for the local Qaeda operation. Military officials told Reuters that an "al Qaeda senior leader for Pakistan and Afghanistan was targeted in the drone strike and was killed."

An official told the Agence France Presse on condition of anonymity that the drone fired two missiles on a compound, killing four terrorists and wounding two others. The compound belonged to militant commander Hafiz Gul Bahadur, who leads his own rebel faction in the area.

The attack on Sunday was a part of an offensive that began in June to weed out militants who have been using areas like North Waziristan on the Afghan border as their hideouts.

On Saturday, a strike by Pakistan's army killed an important al Qaeda commander, Adnan el Shukrijumah, also in North Waziristan. The US had placed a bounty of $5 million (4.1 million euros) on his head for a plot to bomb the New York subway.

According to estimates, more than 1,100 militants and 100 soldiers have died in the army's offensive since June.

mg/mkg (AFP, dpa, Reuters)