Pakistan: US missile strike suspected in 2 deaths

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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081216/ap_on_re_as/as_pakistan

Pakistan: US missile strike suspected in 2 deaths

By NAHAL TOOSI, Associated Press Writer Nahal Toosi, Associated Press

Writer – 42 mins ago

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – A suspected U.S. missile strike killed two

people in Pakistan near the Afghan border, officials and a witness

said Tuesday, as two prominent U.S. senators visited Islamabad amid

flaring tensions over the Mumbai attacks in India.

The Monday night strike in Tabi Tolkhel village in the North

Waziristan tribal region appeared to be the latest in a surge of

alleged U.S. missile attacks on militant targets in Pakistan's

northwest, a border region long bedeviled by al-Qaida and Taliban

extremists.

It also was the latest example of how militancy and the fight against

it is engulfing this nuclear-armed Muslim nation from all sides.

India blames a Pakistan-based militant group for the attacks in

Mumbai that killed more 160 people, and the U.S. has joined in the

international chorus demanding that Pakistan crack down on violent

extremists in its territory. The missile strikes have long indicated

U.S. impatience with Pakistani efforts.

U.S. Sen. Kerry, the next Foreign Relations Committee chairman,

was in Pakistan on Tuesday, the latest in a string of U.S. officials

to visit India and Pakistan since the attacks in India's commercial

capital last month.

Like Kerry, Sen. " Kit " Bond also arrived in Islamabad on

Monday for meetings with top Pakistanis, U.S. Embassy spokesman Lou

Fintor said. He declined to give more details.

More than 30 alleged U.S. missile strikes have been reported since

August in Pakistan's northwest. The latest suspected U.S. strike set

a house on fire, said Ajab Khan, a village resident who went to the

scene.

He said he saw two bodies brought out, and that three wounded people

were taken away in a vehicle. Suspected Taliban militants surrounded

the house afterward, Khan said — a common occurrence after such

strikes.

Three local intelligence officials confirmed the account, citing

informants. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were

not authorized to speak to media.

Pakistan routinely protests the strikes as violations of its

sovereignty, saying they inflame anti-American sentiment. U.S.

officials rarely acknowledge or comment on the individual missile

strikes, many of which are said to originate from CIA-run unmanned

drones.

However, American leaders have previously said the strikes have

helped kill some important militant leaders who use Pakistani

territory as safe havens from which to plot attacks on U.S. and NATO

forces in Afghanistan.

India has blamed a Pakistan-based militant group called Lashkar-e-

Taiba for last month's attacks in Mumbai. The U.S. has said Lashkar-e-

Taiba, which has long been active in the Pakistani-Indian dispute

over the Himalayan region of Kashmir, has forged links with al-Qaida.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said Monday that Pakistan will not

let British investigators question suspects it detains in connection

with the Mumbai attacks, turning down a request from British Prime

Minister Gordon Brown.

Gilani said in parliament that he also told Brown that " if there were

any proofs, these persons will be prosecuted under the law of

Pakistan, " Gilani's office said.

Pakistan has pledged full cooperation with the investigation,

arrested at least two key suspects and clamped down on an Islamic

charity the U.N. branded a front for terrorism.

Brown said cooperation among investigators was vital to defeat

transnational terrorism and said three-quarters of the most serious

terrorist plots investigated in Britain had links to al-Qaida in

Pakistan.

Brown also has asked India to let British police question the only

gunman captured alive during the Mumbai attacks. India has made no

public response.

___

Associated Press writer Zarar Khan contributed to this report from

Islamabad.