Nine, including 5 Pak Taliban commanders, killed in two US drone attacks in Waziristan

Nine people, including five senior commanders of Pakistani Taliban leader Maulvi Nazeer, were killed and seven others injured in two separate drone attacks in South Waziristan and North Waziristan tribal regions.

In the first attack, US drones attacked a double-cabin pickup truck, killing Maulvi Nazeer's younger brother, Hazrat Omar, and commanders Khan Mohammad Wazir, Meraj Khan Wazir and Ashfaq Wazir, The News reports.

The identity of the fifth victim could not be ascertained, the report said.

The commanders had gone to Angoor Adda near the Afghan border earlier on Thursday morning along with three-dozen militants to fight against the NATO forces in Paktika province, the report quoted sources close to Maulvi Nazeer, as saying.

The militants had forgotten something important in Wana, the headquarters of South Waziristan, and decided to go back there and bring the material in the vehicle. The militants were passing through the mountainous Tor Korai area near Azam Warsak when their pickup truck came under attack of the CIA-operated spy planes, the report said.

Taliban sources said that three drones were seen flying over the area during the attack. The drones fired six missiles at the vehicle, killing five people on the spot and injuring four others.

According to sources, the Taliban could not retrieve the bodies or injured from the rubble of the vehicle in time as the drones continued flying over the area for almost an hour.

"It was almost an hour later that we managed to reach the spot but by then Hazrat Omar, Khan Mohammad, Mairaj and Ashfaq were dead," the paper quoted a senior commander of Maulvi Nazeer group, as telling on the phone from somewhere in South Waziristan.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity, he said the bodies of the five slain commanders were later brought to Wana for burial while the injured were shifted to a hospital in the town, where they were said to be in stable condition.

Meanwhile, four people were killed and three others injured in another drone attack in North Waziristan on Thursday, the report said.

The drone fired four missiles at a house in Khushali village in Mir Ali subdivision, tribal sources and security officials based in Mir Ali were quoted as saying.

The injured were shifted to a local hospital in Mir Ali. The identity of the slain men could not be ascertained. (ANI)