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PESHAWAR: The American drones in yet another attack on the Pakistani soil, third after the new US administration took over on 20 January on Saturday morning killed up to 33 people and wounded many others in Ladha Tehsil of South Waziristan agency.

The foreign press as well as Pakistani officials said those killed in the drone attack included the local Taliban militants and several fugitives. Credible sources, the residents and the sources in the political administration told an English newspaper that with exception to a couple of insurgents, all those falling prey to the US adventurism were the local innocent citizens.

The drone attack came within 24 hours of the disclosure made by chairperson of the US Senate Intelligence Committee, Sen Dianne Feinstein that the CIA led predator planes carrying out strikes on Pakistan’s westerns borders, take off from no where else but an airbase in Pakistan.

While once again making mockery of the Pakistan government’s requests to the US administration to put an halt to the drone attacks and its pledge made to the nation that no such attack would take place in future, notorious US drones or the pilot-less spy planes, entered Nasar Khel village of Ladha Sub division South Waziristan agency Saturday 6 P.M and fired two missiles at the house of one Roshan Mehsud playing hell in the region. As the local residents rushed to the site and rescued victims from the building which was razed to the ground, some 33 people were reported killed and many others injured till the filing of this report.

“The compound, which comprised a guesthouse and a religious seminary, or Madrassa, was hit by two missiles, destroying them completely Hours later the dead bodies were still being pulled out from the rubble. Taliban fighters surrounded the flattened compound, preventing outsiders from approaching”. A local official said. However, residents said the local people soon after the attack sealed the area and shifted the injured to a private hospital

An official of the local administration confirmed the killing of 30 people in Saturdays drone attack but he said some militants including foreigners of Afghan and Uzbek origin were also among the dead.

“Some alleged Taliban used to visit the targeted house” the official said. The independent sources and the locals, however, claimed that almost all those killed were the local citizens and not the militants. Some Taliban sources said one Uzbek and an Afghan fighter was among those killed in Saturday’s drone attack.

Reports reaching here said there was great anguish among the locals over the Saturday outrageous incident and they demanded of the Pakistani government to come up with a bold stance in defending her people and the territorial integrity instead of adopting an apologetic attitude.