Sixteen dead and dozens injured as U.S. launches missile attack in Pakistan

Al-Qaeda commander Ilyas Kashmiri thought to have been killed



Sixteen people have been killed and dozen injured after the U.S. launched missile attacks on three suspected militant targets in Pakistan today.

The identities of the dead in the unusually intense volley of drone-fired strikes in the South Waziristan tribal region were not known.

The pressure on insurgents comes days after a strike was believed to have killed an Al-Qaeda commander, Pakistani intelligence officials said.

A picture of the area where the drone attacks took place, and was a former Taliban militant training camp, has been released

Pakistani tribesmen dance as they gather for a tribal meeting at Shakai in South Waziristan bordering Afghanistan, where the latest drone attacks were

Several Arabs were said to be among the victims of one of them, according to the officials, who did not give their names in line with agency policy.



Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters remain in South Waziristan, despite a Pakistani army offensive launched there in 2009.



Since the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden on May 2 in northwest Pakistan, missile strikes have picked up pace from a relative lull in the year's first half.



But anger at the bin Laden operation, seen here as a violation of Pakistani sovereignty, has led to fresh calls on Washington to stop the attacks.



Ilyas Kashmiri was believed to have been killed in a drone attack last week - though nothing has been confirmed yet

Meanwhile Pakistani authorities said yesterday that they were increasingly sure that a Friday missile strike in South Waziristan killed Ilyas Kashmiri, a top Al-Qaeda commander rumoured to have been a contender to replace bin Laden as the terror network's chief.



Getting definitive confirmation about who died in the missile strikes is difficult, especially if no body is retrieved.



When asked about Kashmiri, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said 'the U.S. has confirmed that he died,' but it was unclear if he was referring to private communications between the two governments.

Publicly, at least, U.S. officials have not confirmed the death.



Kashmiri was wrongly said by Pakistani and American officials to have been killed in a missile strike in 2009.



Pakistani officials declined to comment on whether they had assisted the U.S. in the Friday strike.



Before dawn, one set of missiles hit a compound in Wucha Dana village, killing seven people.



The second set landed at about the same time at a Muslim seminary there, killing five people, two anonymous Pakistani intelligence officials said.



They said several Arab men were believed to be among the dead.



Later today, missiles hit a vehicle travelling in Dra Nishter village elsewhere in the region, killing four, officials said.

Washington says the missiles have killed hundreds of militants, including several top Al-Qaeda commanders since they began in earnest in 2008.

More than 30 have struck this year, compared to last year's tally of about 130. Some experts question their legality and the secrecy under which they operate.



Transparent investigations of alleged civilian casualties are not carried out.



Pakistani intelligence is believed to provide the U.S. with targeting information for at least some of the strikes.



But its civilian and military leaders publicly protest the strikes and say they create more enemies than they kill. It would be politically toxic to acknowledge collaborating with the U.S. in attacks unpopular among many Pakistanis.



Also today, the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for a bomb that killed 18 people at a bakery in an army neighbourhood in the northwest town of Nowshera last night.

