MIRAMSHAH, Oct 4: The 21 slain people, foreigners among them, who were killed by a missile attack in Momadkhel area of North Waziristan on Friday, were buried on Saturday.

The funeral of 14 tribesmen was held in Momad Khel, some 15 kilometres west of Miramshah. The foreigners were buried at an unspecified place on the night between Friday and Saturday.

Seven members of a family were killed in the attack on the house of Abdur Rehman, an Afghan national from Afghanistan’s Khost province. The dead were Abdur Rehman himself, his three sons, a son-of-law and two other relatives.

Wazir Jan, another Afghan national, was also killed along with some tribesmen.

Agencies add: Villagers collected the corpses and body parts of at least 20 people, including several suspected Arab militants as well as three children, from the debris.

Villagers combed the wreckage at daybreak, looking for survivors and bodies to be buried.

“We found body parts scattered all over the place in the ruins, someone’s hand, someone’s leg,” Bakht Ali, one of the villagers, said.

An intelligence official based in the region said a woman and three children were among those killed.

“We now have a figure of 20 dead. That includes eight residents of the house, five other locals and seven foreigners,” the official said.

There were no indications that any of those killed were regarded by US counter-terrorism agencies as top tier Al Qaeda targets, sources said.

An army spokesman said there had been an explosion in the area, but was unable to confirm the cause.

Tribesmen in Mir Ali, a town 25km east of Miranshah, fired at a US drone on Saturday before it turned away.