ISLAMABAD - At least three suspected militants were killed and two more injured when a US drone hit a compound in Kurram Agency along the Pak-Afghan border on Friday.
Confirming the incident, officials in the agency said that strike took place in remote Ghuz Ghari village situated close to the Afghan border. They said at least two missiles were fired at the home of Maulana Muhibullah.
Resultantly, three suspected militants were killed in the strike while two others sustained wounds. They said that identity of those killed in the attack remained unclear.
The officials confirmed that the targeted house had been destroyed completely. "The US drone fired two missiles, at least three fighters from the Afghan Taliban have been killed and two wounded," a senior government official in Kurram told AFP. An intelligence official in Kurram said one of the dead belonged to the Haqqani network.
Baseer Khan Wazir, the political agent and the most senior administrator in the Kurram Agency, said the drone strike took place close to the border with Afghanistan.
“Two missiles were dropped on the home of Maulvi Mohib and three people have been killed,” Wazir said.
A spokesman for the US-led international force in Kabul had no immediate information on the report but said he would look into it.
Two Afghan Taliban sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Mohib was affiliated with the Haqqani network. “He remained associated with the Haqqani network but wasn’t a prominent figure,” said one senior Taliban member.
A second commander confirmed that Mohib was part of the Afghan Taliban: “We don’t differentiate the Haqqani network and Taliban. This is just a propaganda of the western media,” he said.
The first US strike under the Donald Trump administration killed two men riding a motorbike in Kurram in March this year, while the second suspected attack happened in late April in North Waziristan Agency. In June, a drone strike had killed a commander of the Haqqani Network in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa's Hangu district. Haqqani network leader Abubakar and his partner were killed when a drone fired two missiles at his house in Speen Tal area of Hangu.
In April, a suspected US drone strike had killed several Taliban militants in North Waziristan close to the Afghanistan border.
US drone attacks inside Pakistan have become rare over the past few years. In its last high-profile attack inside Pakistan, the United States in May 2016 killed Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Mansour in Balochistan.
The use of US drones has dwindled dramatically in recent years in Pakistan, where the strikes have proven extremely controversial with the public and rights groups over human rights and sovereignty concerns.
In a major speech outlining US policy on Afghanistan last month, Trump lambasted Pakistan for sheltering "agents of chaos" and suggested ties with Islamabad would be adjusted immediately. He offered few details. Islamabad has repeatedly denied claims of being soft on militancy, accusing the United States of ignoring the thousands who have been killed in Pakistan and the billions spent fighting extremists.
