MIRANSHAH (AFP/Reuters) - A US missile strike from a drone aircraft Tuesday killed at least 10 militants in a tribal area of Pakistan bordering Afghanistan, Pakistani officials said. Intelligence agents said the target of the missile strike was the house of a cleric near the Afghan border used as a militant hideout. The strike targeted a Taliban compound in Dargamandi village of North Waziristan, a senior security official told AFP. Nine to 10 militants have been killed. They are locals affiliated with the Haqqani group, an intelligence official in the region told Reuters referring to veteran Afghan guerrilla commander Jalaluddin Haqqani. Another official confirmed the casualties and said that a US drone fired two missiles to hit the compound, five kilometres northwest of Miranshah, the main town of North Waziristan. He said it was not immediately clear whether any high-value targets were present in the area at the time. The latest missile strike came hours after Taliban militants attacked a group of boys on their way to school in another part of the northwest, killing four and wounding three, officials said. It was the second US missile strike in the North Waziristan tribal region in less than 24 hours. A similar strike targeting a madrassa and an adjoining house killed at least five people on Monday. Residents on Tuesday said they had seen the drone hovering in the sky and had been expecting the missile attack. Washington alleges Al-Qaeda and Taliban rebels who fled Afghanistan after the 2001 US-led invasion are holed up in the semi-autonomous tribal belt. The drones have killed hundreds of militants since then including the chief of the Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud, who was killed in the South Waziristan region on August 5. Pakistani and US officials said the militants were in disarray after Baitullahs death and their attacks appeared to tail off though they have been picking up again.