US drones fired missiles into a Pakistani tribal region today, killing 12 people, including five foreigners, in an area known as a stronghold of a local Pakistani Taliban commander.
Pakistani officials said the attack targeted a house in a remote village on the border between North and South Waziristan, where Baitullah Mehsud, an ally of al-Qaeda, has been cornered up by Pakistani forces since early this year.
At least three missiles were fired during the early morning attack.
Frustrated by fighters from Pakistan fuelling the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan and fearful of al-Qaeda regrouping, US forces have intensified missile attacks by pilotless drones since early September.
Missile-armed drones are primarily used by US forces in the region, though the United States seldom confirms drone attacks. Pakistan does not have any.
Mehsud, who was accused of being behind the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto last December, married a second wife in a ceremony held earlier this week in the Makeen area of South Waziristan.
CIA director Michael Hayden told a Washington think tank yesterday that US pressure in Pakistan's borderlands aimed to put al-Qaeda "off balance", and said the region represented the greatest terrorism threat to the United States.
Mr Hayden said several al-Qaeda veterans had been eliminated "by violence or natural causes" in the past year and the hunt for Osama bin Laden was "at the top of CIA's priority list".
He did not refer openly to the missile strikes or a US commando raid in South Waziristan in September, which marked the first time the lid has been raised on the use of ground forces on Pakistan soil.
Pakistan has condemned the violations of its territory. Islamabad argues the attacks fuel anger towards the United States and undermine the government's own efforts to garner people's support for the campaign against militancy.