(Previous Incident Code: B12 )

An alleged US strike in Mir Ali, North Waziristan, killed up to 15 people, hereof up to six civilians, including two women and three children, and several key Taliban members, various media reported.

Locals told AFP that “a missile came from an unknown direction on Monday night and hit the house, after which 12 people have died.” The strike reportedly hit the house of a man named Madad Khan (Abdul Sattar), a suspected Taliban supporter, who was left wounded by the strike. According to some sources, a ‘Al Qaeda summit’ was held in the house.

The death toll spanned from 12 to 15, though reports were conflicting in terms of how many militants and civilians were killed in the strike.  Some said the killed were only militants, while others said that between one and six civilians were killed, including women and children.

An internal Pakistani government document put the death toll at 12, noting ‘civilian’ without specifying how many of the dead this might apply to.

The News, who put the death toll at 14, said that ten were “suspected militants” while two were women and three were children.

According to South Asia Analysis Group, the two women were married to Madad Khan, and the killed children were also Khan’s.

It was unclear whether Madad Khan/Abdul Sattar was a member of the Taliban, as claimed by some.  Maulana Mahmood Hasan, a cleric in Mir Ali, told the Washington Post that he was friends with cab driver Abdul Sattar:

“Having ties with the Taliban is not a sin, and if somebody is accusing Sattar of any ties with the Taliban, then we are all culprits.”

Researchers from Stanford/NYU interviewed an eyewitness who had been disabled in the attack, under the pseudonym Waleed Shiraz. At the time of the strike he was a student at the National University of Modern Languages in Islamabad and had travelled home for the holidays. His unnamed father was killed in the attack. He told the researchers:

“My father was asleep in the hujra as usual after a normal day, and I was studying nearby. . . . I had liked studying in the hujra, because it is peaceful and quiet. There was nothing different about our routine in the prior week… [When we got hit], [m]y father’s body was scattered in pieces and he died immediately, but I was unconscious for three to four days. . . . [Since then], I am disabled. My legs have become so weak and skinny that I am not able to walk anymore. . . . It has also affected my back. I used to like playing cricket, but I cannot do it anymore because I cannot run.”

Multiple sources reported that the strike also had killed the notorious Abu Laith al-Libi, a senior al Qaeda figure along with up to 15 militants, including Abu Obeida Tawari al-Obeidi, Abu Adel al-Kuwaiti, and Abdel Ghaffar al-Darnawi. Qari Hussain Mehsud, also reported killed, later emerged alive. US-born militant Adam Gadahn was also rumoured by some sources to be the intended target of the attack.

It was later claimed that this was the first CIA drone strike in which the US did not seek permission from Pakistan beforehand to attack. Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, appeared to acknowledge the covert campaign when he told reporters:

“While this particular strike was very successful and we were very pleased with the outcome, there is still a great deal more work to do.”

However, a US military official, cited by Financial Times, said that the missile was not fired by the US military.