4th Missile Strike in Pakistan Kills 5 09/09 05:21

   DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan (AP) -- A suspected American missile strike 
killed five alleged militants in northwestern Pakistan early Thursday, an 
intelligence official said, the fourth such attack on suspected insurgent 
targets there in 24 hours.

   The barrage was one of the most intense since the attacks were stepped up 
more than two years ago in a bid to keep pressure on al-Qaida and its allies. 
Most are believed to be fired from unmanned, remote-controlled planes that can 
hover for hours above the area.

   Also Thursday, separate explosions --- one near the Afghan border and 
another in the country's southwest --- killed 13 people, officials said, while 
Britain said a U.K. journalist had been released from months of militant 
captivity close to the Afghan border.

   U.S. officials do not publicly acknowledge the missile strikes but have said 
privately that they have killed several senior Taliban and al-Qaida militants 
and scores of foot soldiers in a region largely out of the control of the 
Pakistani state. Critics say innocents are also killed, fueling support for the 
insurgency.

   The latest attack took place before dawn on a house close to a disused match 
factory a little more than a mile (three kilometers) west of Miran Shah town, a 
hub for local and international militants in the North Waziristan region, an 
intelligence official said. He spoke on condition of anonymity in line with the 
policy of his agency. Five alleged militants were killed, he said.

   The three attacks Wednesday also took place in North Waziristan, a lawless 
region home to al-Qaida leaders plotting attacks in the West, insurgents 
battling foreign troops just across the border in Afghanistan and extremists 
behind bombings in Pakistan. There have been at least four other attacks over 
the last week.

   Pakistani intelligence officials working from army bases in North Waziristan 
have a network of spies who inform them of the attacks. Sometimes journalists 
are able to speak by phone to villagers who witness them. Pakistani security 
agencies are believed to cooperate with at least some of the strikes, but there 
is very little independent reporting of them because the region is so dangerous 
for outsiders.

   The names of those killed are rarely released, and allegations of civilian 
casualties are not publicly investigated.

   The militants have stepped up their own attacks in Pakistan in recent days, 
just as the army focuses on helping millions of victims from the worst floods 
in the country's history. Four big bombs have killed at least 135 people in 
less than a week.

   On Thursday, 10 people were killed close to the Afghan border in Kurram 
region when a roadside bomb hit the bus they were traveling in, said local 
government official Noor Ahmed. It was unclear why --- or whether --- the 
vehicle was targeted.

   Another explosion took place outside the house of a provincial minister in 
Quetta, the capital of the southwestern Baluchistan province, killing three 
people, said city police chief Abid Hussain Nothkani. He did not speculate on 
who might be responsible.

   Also Thursday, the British High Commission said a British-Pakistani 
filmmaker who was abducted by Islamist militants in March in the Afghan border 
region had been released. It did not say when or how Asad Qureshi had been 
freed. He was working on a film on militancy for the U.K.'s Channel 4 TV 
station when he was seized.

   Pakistan's army has launched several offensives in the northwest over the 
last two years, but has resisted moving into North Waziristan despite U.S. 
pressure. A major militant faction there, the Haqqani network, is blamed for 
attacks against U.S. troops in Afghanistan but has refrained from striking 
inside Pakistan. Analysts believe the army views the network, with which it has 
historical links, as an important tool to secure its interests in Afghanistan 
once foreign troops withdraw.


(KA)