(Previous Incident Code: Ob312 )

After a 27-day pause, CIA drones reportedly destroyed a house and damaged others nearby, killing at least three people. Between two and six missiles reportedly hit the building, which caught fire, at noon. The strike injured an unknown number of people in one of several nearby houses that were damaged by the blast. One report said the strike killed five, including ‘three suspected militants’. The house was occupied by alleged TTP militants. The strike coincided with a Pakistan Air Force attack on TTP targets in Orakzai Tribal Agency.

However, the following month three anonymous US officials said this and the subsequent strike (Ob311) were not carried out by the US. They told the New York Times it was a Pakistan Air Force strike that was attributed to the CIA to avoid criticism from the Pakistani public. One official said, “We haven’t had any kinetic activity since January.” They said the Pakistan Air Force was responsible for at least the February 6 strike. And they said the second strike ‘could have been the Taliban fighting among themselves. Or it could have been simply bad reporting.’ A Pakistan military source told the New York Times, “The Pakistan Air Force does not generally undertake stand-alone strikes such as these because it is not equipped with the appropriate strike weapons.” The paper also reported the US gives the Pakistani military 30 minutes notice of drone strikes in South Waziristan.

But a Pakistani military spokesman strongly denied Pakistan carried out the strike, saying, “Such an accusation is a distortion of the facts and seems to be aimed at diluting Pakistan’s stance on drone strikes.” The Long War Journal subsequently reported ‘US intelligence officials involved with the drone program in Pakistan’ said both strikes were ‘US operations’.

Anonymous officials in Miranshah told Pakistan Today that three people died instantly when the building was ‘razed to the ground’. A Pakistan intelligence official said militants surrounded the site and moved the bodies to an unidentified location. However it was also reported that locals recovered five bodies from the debris. Express Tribune reported civilians immediately rushed to the site. This was contradicted by a report that said residents were initially reluctant to ‘leave their houses’ because drones hovered over the area after the strike, delaying the rescue effort.

The previous day, US Department of Justice memo was leaked to the press, explaining some of the secret legal justification for drone strikes. The day of the strike, Pakistan’s Ambassador to Washington denied her government secretly allows CIA drone strikes.