Missile strike kills ten militants

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WANA At least ten militants were killed in a missile strike on their training camp in the South Waziristan region, near the Afghan border, security officials and residents said on Wednesday.

The latest attack took place on Tuesday night in Bhagar, about 35 km west of Wana, the main town in the region, they said.

“At least 10 militants were killed in the strikes,” a senior security official said adding that the casualties may rise.

“This is their work,” he said referring to the coalition forces deployed across the border in Afghanistan.

In Kabul the US military said the missiles were not fired by either NATOs International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) or the US-led coalition.

`This is not true. We have no reports of missiles being fired into Pakistan,` US Lieutenant Nathan Perry told AFP.

The Pakistani security official said foreign militants were reported to be in the hideouts.

`There were reports about presence of Arab, Turkmen and local militants in the two hideouts, run by a local commander Zanjir Wazir,` the official said.

An intelligence official in South Waziristan told Reuters that at least four missiles were fired from across the border hitting one of two militant training camps.

`This camp was run by Hizb-e-Islami and there were about 15 people including foreigners there at the time of the attack,` he said referring to a militant faction allied with the Taliban.

Residents said the mud-and-brick compound had been destroyed and at least eight bodies recovered from the rubble.

In a separate incident, a militant faction leader was shot and killed by a gunman at his office in a mosque in a northwestern town.

In Bara town in the Khyber region, Islamist faction leader Haji Namdar was shot dead as he attended a meeting at his office, where in May he escaped a suicide bomb attack.

`They were three men who suddenly stood up during the meeting and one of them opened fire on him,` said Zahir Shah, a close ally of Namdars.

The attacker was captured while the other two men escaped, Shah said.

Namdar led a group called the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, which promoted Taliban-style rule, but was known to have had differences with Pakistans main Taliban group.