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PESHAWAR: A series of missile strikes has killed at least 19 suspected insurgents in Pakistan's tribal borderlands, signalling that the new year will bring no respite in a relentless campaign of US attacks employing unmanned aerial drones to target militant figures. The three strikes took place just hours apart. At least nine people were killed in the first strike on Saturday, when missiles destroyed a moving vehicle in the North Waziristan tribal region, officials said. Two hours later drones fired more missiles that struck people who had gathered to retrieve the bodies, killing five. A third strike on Saturday night once again targeted a moving vehicle in the Mohammed Khel area of North Waziristan, killing four people. The strikes were apparently aimed at the Haqqani network, an offshoot of the Taliban movement and one of the deadliest foes of US and other Western forces in Afghanistan. The group's fighters operate mainly in the eastern part of Afghanistan but seek shelter in neighbouring Pakistan. The multiple missile hits in the same area over several hours, which targeted two vehicles and a compound, suggested that intelligence might have indicated the presence of a high-level commander. The compound belonged to a man affiliated with a commander named Gul Bhadur, who is a senior associate of Siraj Haqqani, the network's chieftain. Presumed US drones staged nearly 120 missile strikes last year in Pakistan's tribal areas, killing about 2100 people, most of them militants, according to the Washington policy think-tank, New America Foundation. With drone strikes intensifying, this remote-control war is politically unpopular in Pakistan. Pakistan's government publicly protests against the air strikes, saying they violate the country's sovereignty and anger tribesmen whose support is needed to fend off extremists. But Islamabad is widely believed to secretly support the attacks and provide intelligence for at least some of them. US officials rarely discuss CIA programs such as the drone attacks, but some NATO officials have described the strikes as a highly effective means of targeting insurgent commanders who would otherwise be out of reach because Western ground forces are not supposed to operate inside Pakistan. Saturday's strikes coincided with the year's first reported deaths of Western troops in Afghanistan. Both deaths occurred in southern Afghanistan, one in an insurgent attack and the other in an explosion, the Western military said. The nationalities were not disclosed. Los Angeles Times,Associated Press