Feel good story of the day.

(LWJ) — US Predators struck today in Pakistan’s Taliban-controlled tribal agency of South Waziristan, killing three “militants.” The unmanned, CIA-operated Predators or Reapers fired a pair of missiles at a vehicle parked in a compound in the village of Azam Warzak. AFP claimed that the “militants” escaped the strike, but The Associated Press said three were killed in the attack.

No senior Taliban or al Qaeda operatives were reported killed in today’s strike.

Today’s attack occurred in an area of South Waziristan controlled by Mullah Nazir, the leader of the Taliban in the Waziri tribal areas. The village of Azam Warzak sits on the border with Afghanistan and serves as a transit point for Taliban, al Qaeda, and other terrorists heading to and from Pakistan’s war-torn neighbor. Senior al Qaeda leaders are also known to shelter in Azam Warzak; a top al Qaeda financial chief is thought to have been killed in the town earlier this year. And in 2004, the Pakistani military fought the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan as well as Chechen and Arab fighters in Shin Warzak and surrounding areas.

Today’s strike takes place as the US and Pakistan are waging a war of words over the latter’s support of the Haqqani Network, the al Qaeda-linked Taliban subgroup that is based in Miramshah in North Waziristan. Several US officials, including Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and outgoing Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen, have accused Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, or ISI, of directly supporting Haqqani Network attacks inside Afghanistan. Most recently, the US said that the ISI aided the Haqqani Network in attacking the US Embassy and ISAF headquarters in Kabul.

Posted by ZIP on Tuesday, September 27, 2011, at 7:39 pm | Tweet

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