Alleged US strike kills 10 in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD // A suspected US missile strike killed at least 10 alleged militants today at a compound formerly used as a religious school in Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal region, officials said, the eighth such attack in two weeks. The strike illustrated the Obama administration's unwillingness to abandon its missile campaign aimed at Pakistan's Northwest Territories bordering Afghanistan. Despite long-standing Pakistani protests, the missile attacks have surged in number in recent days.

Nearly all the attacks in recent months have focused on North Waziristan, a segment of Pakistan's semiautonomous tribal belt where some militant networks focused on battling the US and Nato in Afghanistan are based. Some of those militants are believed to have been involved in a late December attack that killed seven CIA employees in eastern Afghanistan. It's a region that the Pakistani military has been wary of, partly because the groups have not directly threatened the Pakistani state. The army has struck truces with some of the groups to keep them out of its battle against the Pakistani Taliban - who have attacked Pakistan in numerous ways - in nearby South Waziristan. The latest missiles hit the Pasalkot area of North Waziristan around 7am, landing in a sprawling compound that has been used as a religious school in the past.

The identities of the dead were not immediately known, an army official and an intelligence official said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak to media on the record. The strike came as Richard Holbrooke, a US special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, was visiting parts of Pakistan. * AP