'US strike' on Pakistan militants

Damage to civilian life and property is making Pakistan's leaders uneasy

A suspected US missile strike in north-west Pakistan has killed at least 11 people, Pakistani officials say.

The attack by a US drone targeted Taleban militants in the tribal region of North Waziristan, close to the Afghan border, they said.

Local people say the house of fighters loyal to a Taleban commander, Hafiz Gul Bahadur, was hit.

The US has not confirmed the attack. It has carried out many attacks along Pakistan's border areas recently.

Sovereignty issue

The attack was in a remote village in the area of Razmak. Details are sketchy, but locals say a house of a local tribesman was hit.

The identity of those killed in the attack is not yet clear. Hafiz Gul Bahadur is believed to be responsible for many attacks on US and Nato forces in neighbouring Afghanistan.

He comes from the Ahmedzai Wazir tribe and used to be second in command to Pakistan's most feared militant, Baitullah Mehsud, the BBC's Syed Shoaib Hasan in Islamabad reports.

Hafiz Gul Bahadur later broke away from Baitullah Mehsud.

North Waziristan is a haven for Taleban and al-Qaeda fighters who enter Afghanistan to fight US and Nato forces.

There are believed to have been 18 strikes by CIA-operated predator drones in Pakistan's tribal border areas since August.

The US says it acts only when it has clear intelligence on the whereabouts of a known militant and that its targeting of al-Qaeda leaders is helping prevent terrorist attacks on the west.

But Pakistanis complain that civilians are often killed and that the attacks are a violation of their sovereignty.

Earlier this week Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari warned the new head of US Central Command, Gen David Petraeus, that missile attacks on Pakistani territory were counter-productive.

Mr Zardari said such strikes were detrimental to America's war on terror.

He said they make it harder for the Pakistani authorities to persuade the Pashtun tribes living along the Afghan frontier to join them in the fight against the extremists.