MIRANSHAH, Dec 1: Three foreign militants of Middle Eastern origin were among five people killed on Wednesday night when a heavily fortified mud-house came under a missile attack in Asoray village in the Mirali sub-division, east of the agency headquarters. Another foreigner was wounded in the attack.

Eyewitnesses said the sound of an unmanned air vehicle (UAV) was heard in the area at the time of the attack.

At least seven missiles were fired from the drone at the house, a witness told Dawn.

The agency’s political authorities, however, claims that a missile attack had caused the fatalities and said the explosion occurred when the suspected militants were making an explosive inside the house owned by one Mohammad Siddiq of Daur tribe.

Officials of the Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR) in Peshawar refused to comment on the attack. “It would better to get a comment from the political authorities,” an official of the ISPR said.

Residents of Asoray village said that loud explosions rocked the locality at around 1:45am on Thursday, killing Siddiq’s seven-year-old son Mohammad Aziz and 17-year-old nephew Abdul Wasid, a college student.

They said that three other men, suspected to be foreigners of Arab origin, had been killed in the attack and another had received injuries.

They claimed that the UAV had fired seven guided missiles at the house, razing it to the ground and killing five people on the spot.

Villagers came out from their homes and retrieved four bodies from the rubble along with a wounded person.

Sources said the suspected foreigners were buried at an undisclosed location in the area while their wounded comrade was moved out of the place.

Eight foreigners had died in a similar attack in Mosaka village in Mirali in North Waziristan on Nov 5.

The sources said that one of those killed in Thursday’s attack might have been one of the foreigners who had escaped unhurt in the Nov 5 attack.

Armed residents of the village cordoned off the area and outsiders and officials were not allowed to examine the site.

Witnesses said that about 5,000 angry tribesmen attended the funeral of the college student and his young cousin.

The students of Mirali Degree College took out a demonstration in protest against Wasid’s killing and blocked the main road.

They raised slogans against the government and the United States for murdering innocent tribesmen in the operation against foreign militants. The crowd chanted “Stop the operation” and “Stop firing at children”.

Maulana Deendar, a former federal lawmaker, also criticized the government for the attack.

“We strongly condemn the killing of innocent people because the government had a peace deal with us and now it is killing our people,” Maulana Dindar said in his address at the burial.