MIRANSHAH, PAKISTAN—According to CIA officials and sources on the ground in the region, an unlikely friendship has developed between a 9-year-old Pakistani boy and a U.S. MQ-1 Predator drone in North Waziristan. “You’d think they would have nothing in common, and yet you see them together all the time, wandering around the countryside hand in wing,” area merchant Siraj Rahmad told reporters Friday, adding that local tribesmen generally took amusement in the duo’s improbable companionship, apart from the time the boy tried to hide the drone under his shirt and sneak it into his fourth-grade classroom. “Each day, when the boy goes to school, the drone slowly hovers over his house, waiting for him to come home. It’s adorable, really.” At press time, the inseparable drone and boy had run out to a nearby field to shoot at old cans, resulting in four civilian casualties.

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