PESHAWAR: A US drone on Thursday killed two men riding a motorcycle in Pakistan’s northwest tribal region, officials said, the first such attack in the country under the administration of new American President, Donald Trump.
Drone strikes are extremely unpopular among many Pakistanis because they are seen as a violation of the country’s sovereignty, although leaked documents have shown that Islamabad and Washington have secretly colluded over some cases in the past.
The attack occurred in the Sara Khwa area of Kurram, one of seven so-called tribal districts that lie along the border with Afghanistan, where Pakistan has been battling a homegrown Islamist insurgency for more than a decade and a half.
Requesting anonymity, a local government official described the two men who were killed as “militants” but said their identity could not immediately be confirmed as the bodies were beyond recognition.
A second official confirmed the strike and the casualties.
“The drone came from Afghanistan and returned after firing two missiles on the motorbike,” he said.
A senior Afghan Taliban commander told AFP on condition of anonymity that one of those killed in the attack was Qari Abdullah, a guard in the Haqqani network while the second, Saqib Ullah, was a commander of the group.
Haqqani is separate from, but allied with, the Taliban.
The last US drone attack took place in May 2016, killing the then-leader of the Afghan Taliban, Mullah Akhtar Mansour, as well as his driver in southwestern Balochistan province.
