MIRAMSHAH: Ten people died when a US drone struck a suspected compound in Shawal region of North Waziristan Agency on Saturday, witnesses said. Local people said two missiles were fired into the compound in Derry Nashter area, some 65km west of Miramshah, the regional headquarters. The compound caught fire in the attack.

Gulab Khan, an eyewitness, said that 10 bodies were retrieved from the rubbles. He said the deceased could not be identified but it was believed that they were local people.

“I saw local people retrieve charred bodies from the debris,” he said.

The sources said that drones kept flying over the area after the strike.

This was the second drone strike in North Waziristan within a week. On April 29, an abandoned school building was targeted in Miramshah Bazaar in which four people were killed. Those killed reportedly belonged to Punjab.

The sources said several militant groups had their hideouts in Shawal area which is closed to Afghanistan. They said the building destroyed in the latest attack was being used by a militant group.

AFP adds: “The death toll in the US drone strike has risen to 10. The drone fired two missiles at the compound,” a security official in Peshawar said. Officials had earlier put the death toll at six.

Two security officials in Miramshah confirmed that militants were using the compound as a training centre. They said the mud compound was completely destroyed.

According to an AFP tally, 45 US missile strikes were reported in Pakistan’s tribal belt in 2009, the year US President Barack Obama took office, 101 in 2010 and 64 in 2011.

The New America Foundation think tank in Washington says drone strikes have killed between 1,715 and 2,680 people in Pakistan in the past eight years.