U.S. drone kills four people in North Waziristan

An American spy aircraft fired missiles into North Waziristan tribal region late Friday and killed at least four people, security officials said.

The drone targeted a house in Dandi Darpakhel area of North Waziristan, bordering Afghanistan, they said.

There was no report about the identity of the slain men.

It was the second U.S. attack in the same region in two days.

At least three people were killed in an U.S. attack near Miranshah, the center of North Waziristan early Thursday.

The U.S. increased the drone attacks after Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s visit to Washington. He had called for end to the attacks in his meeting with President Barrack Obama at the White House last week.

A religious group on Friday staged rallies against the drone strikes and a religious leader urged the government to shoot down U.S. spy aircraft after entering the country’s airspace.

The Amnesty International came up with a detailed field research on nine of 45 reported drone strikes that occurred between January 2012 and August 2013 in North Waziristan region—and found that the US might be responsible for up to 900 civilian deaths.

Quoting some Pakistan government and NGO sources, the report said the US launched some 330 to 374 drone strikes in Pakistan between 2004 and September 2013,” which resulted in estimates of between “400 and 900 civilians having been killed in these attacks and at least 600 people seriously injured.

The AI described the attacks as a war crime, a position which Pakistan leadership can dare endorse.

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