US missiles kill 6 people in Pakistan tribal area

[1]

US drones fired five missiles at a home in a Pakistani tribal region near the Afghan border on Friday, killing at least six people, Pakistani intelligence officials said. The strikes come during an unusually tense time for Pakistan-U.S. relations, and a day after Pakistan's army chief warned that such attacks were counterproductive.

Five people were also wounded in the strike in Spinwam village in North Waziristan, the two intelligence officials said. The exact identities of the victims were not immediately clear, but North Waziristan hosts Islamist militant factions accused of targeting Western forces in neighboring Afghanistan.

Pakistan-U.S. relations sunk to new lows this year after an American CIA contractor in January shot and killed two Pakistanis he said were trying to rob him. A March missile strike that allegedly killed dozens of innocent tribesmen also angered Pakistani leaders.

During a visit here Wednesday, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the U.S. joint chiefs of staff, accused Pakistan's military-run spy service of maintaining links with the Haqqani network, a major Afghan Taliban faction.
Hours later, a Pakistani army statement rejected what it called 'negative propaganda' by the United States, while army chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani said his troops' multiple offensives against insurgent groups in the northwest are evidence of Pakistan's 'national resolve to defeat terrorism'.

Kayani also slammed the ongoing U.S. missile strikes. Those strikes often hit North Waziristan, where the Haqqanis are based and the one tribal region along the Afghan border where the army has not staged an offensive despite U.S. pleas.

The Haqqani network is considered one of the most lethal forces battling U.S. and NATO troops in eastern Afghanistan.

Pakistan's military-run Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency has had links to the network's leaders that date back to the 1980s Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, when the group was also supported by Washington. But after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Pakistan has insisted it has cut those ties.

Still, many analysts and U.S. officials suspect Islamabad may be trying to maintain its links to the Haqqanis so that it can use them as a means of retaining influence in Afghanistan — and keeping a bulwark against archrival India — after the Americans leave.

While officials from both nations have raised the level of rhetoric, they have also spoken of the need to keep the partnership intact.

Washington needs Pakistani support, even if not as whole hearted as it would like, to be able to begin withdrawing troops from Afghanistan this summer, while Islamabad relies heavily on U.S civilian and military aid.
Pakistan has long denounced the drone-fired missile strikes as violations of its sovereignty, but it is widely believed to secretly cooperate with at least some of the attacks. But in mid-March, Kayani issued a rare statement denouncing one such attack after it killed nearly 40 people. A U.S. official said the target was justified, but Kayani said dozens of innocent tribesmen died.

That strike came the day after the American CIA contractor Raymond Davis was freed after compensation was paid to the families of the victims. Throughout the affair, Pakistan refused to take a stand on whether Davis had diplomatic immunity from prosecution as the U.S. embassy claimed.

As militancy has risen in Pakistan, the law and order situation has deteriorated.

Late Thursday, a bomb blast inside an illegal gambling den in Pakistan's largest city of Karachi killed at least 15 people, officials said.

The blast tore through a club in a violent corner of Karachi when scores of people were playing cards and other gambling games, said police officer Irshad Sehar. Provincial official Sagheer Ahmed said 35 people also were wounded. He said the perpetrators were likely "criminal or mafia elements," not militants.

Karachi, a lawless city of around 16 million, often sees violent attacks by criminal and political gangs over the control of illegal businesses and protection rackets. Islamist militants have also carried several attacks there in recent years.