(Previous Incident Code: B42 )

Up to six militants were killed in an alleged US drone strike in Ali Khel, north Waziristan, local and international media reported, though one source also reported the injury of three children.

Sources reported that the strike killed between four and six militants as well as wounding another six.

As the only source, Dawn reported about civilian harm as it noted that “three children in a nearby house were injured and taken to a hospital in Mirali.”

Rashid Rauf, a British al Qaeda-linked operative and a suspect in a 2006 plane-bombing plot, was reportedly killed alongside Egyptian explosives expert Abu Zubair al-Masri and up to four others. Two locals were killed in this strike, and two people were injured, according to data collected by the political administration of the tribal agencies. And the reputed house of Khaliq Noor was destroyed.

Some commentators have questioned whether Rauf died in the attack, with reports claiming in April 2009 that he was still alive. In 2012 Rauf’s family announced plans to sue the UK government for allegedly sharing intelligence with the US that may have led to his death in a drone strike. A relative told a local reporter: “The Americans could not have found and killed him without help from British intelligence officers who shared information. The family want answers. They want to see the evidence that Rashid was a dangerous terrorist.”

While some took this as confirmation from the family that Rauf had died in November 2008, anonymous US intelligence operatives told the Long War Journal that although it initially appeared Rauf had been killed in 2008, he was likely to have survived and to have been killed in a different strike. One official involved in the drone campaign told LWJ:

“It is often difficult to determine when an al Qaeda leader or operative was killed or if they survived targeting. We don’t have a body, we can’t go there to investigate. The fact is, that despite our persistent targeting [with drones], the FATA [Pakistan’s tribal areas] remains a no-go area. This is Taliban territory.”

All known sources blamed the US for carrying out the strike.