Pakistan drone attack 'kills 18 militants'

[Freddie Stubbs]

Source: BBC

Missiles fired by a suspected US drone have struck a vehicle in north-west Pakistan killing at least 18 militants, officials say.

The strike took place in Mir Ali village, 25km (16 miles) from Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan district.

US drone attacks are fairly regular in North and South Waziristan which are Taliban and al-Qaeda strongholds.

More than 100 such attacks occurred in 2010, most of them in North Waziristan.

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-12081937

[HereSince1628]

1. Using one attack as bait for an attack on the follow-on...

Interesting, since that is one of the tactics of car-bombers and assassins.

[wtmusic]

2. Q. And how do we know they were all militants?

A. Because it was our missile that killed them! Next...

[IamK]

3. they are smart weapons...

[wtmusic]

4. I know...using advanced Militant Detector (MD) technology

USA! USA! :patriot:

[Downwinder]

5. Sounds like a circus act. 14 people in one car.

[totodeinhere]

6. US missiles hit Pakistan borderlands, killing 18

Source: AP

Suspected U.S. missiles struck two vehicles in a Taliban stronghold on Pakistan's side of the border with Afghanistan on Monday, killing 18 alleged militants, Pakistani intelligence officials said.

The attack in the North Waziristan tribal region came in the final days of a year that has witnessed an unprecedented number of such strikes from drone aircraft flying over Pakistani soil, part of a ramped-up U.S. campaign to take out al-Qaida and Taliban fighters seeking sanctuary outside Afghanistan.

At least 110 such missile strikes have been launched this year — more than doubling last year's total. Nearly all have landed in North Waziristan, a region that hosts several militant groups battling U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, including the feared Haqqani network.

The six missiles fired Monday struck the vehicles in the Shera Tala village of North Waziristan. Shera Tala lies in Mir Ali district, where militants are heavily concentrated. The identities of the 18 dead were not immediately known.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101227/ap_on_re_as/as_pakistan

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As the US hopefully starts to draw down it's ground forces in Afghanistan, missile attacks and drone attacks of the types described in this article will become more and more prevalent in my opinion. Just because we might start to draw down ground forces, that doesn't mean that the US will be abandoning it's fight against the Taliban and al-Qaida. The fight will simply be entering a new phase. I know that many on the left in the Democratic Party will oppose this type of policy, but Obama promised during his campaign for the presidency to continue the fight against terrorism but to be more "intelligent" about it. And now we are beginning to see the fruits of that policy. I think that means to try to keep US casualties to a minimum and to reduce the footprint of US ground forces, but it won't mean that civilian casualties in the area will necessarily be reduced.

[Amonester]

7. Empires do what empires must.

I sometimes wonder what we would think about any foreign power that would murder civilians in any US suburbs using high-tech drones...

Probably send them flowers, I guess. :sarcasm:

Way to go making new enemies daily.

Nothing to see here, go shopping.

[Alamuti Lotus]

8. the drone is "suspected" to be US (who the fuck else has 'em out there?), the dead flatly assumed..

..to be "militants". Great reporting on these things, did they scrape that off the official NATO press release?