(Previous Incident Code: B4c )

Eight people, most likely including civilians, were killed and up to nine were wounded in a US raid in Saidgai, North Waziristan, international media reported.

An apparent US special forces raid on an unnamed ‘al Qaeda official’ was reported and a guest house owned by Maulvi Noor Mohammad, a religious leader in Saidgai, was destroyed.

Sources on the ground, cited by The New York Times and others, said that eight people were killed, including two women and one or two children. According to Dawn, they were from the same family.

Three ‘suspected Islamists’ were also said to be among the dead, as reported by Reuters. It was claimed that ‘US soldiers’ took away two tribesmen by helicopter in a related operation.

Nine people were reported wounded, though their it was unclear whether they were civilians or militants. According to a doctor at a hospital in Miramshah said victims were treated for shrapnel wounds, as reported by The New York Times.

The New York Times also cited Momin Khan and other residents who said that they had seen two U.S. helicopters hovering over the compound, and that one had fired a missile that destroyed the residence.

A Pakistani intelligence official, cited by Reuters, also said that the explosion was caused by a missile fired from an unmanned  US drone aircraft. However, a senior Pakistani military official said that the three militants were killed in while making bombs, triggering an explosion.

Though almost all sources blamed the US military, the US has, as of now, not confirmed its involvement in the incident.

Finally, it should be mentioned that the before-mentioned guest house owner Maulvi Noor Mohammed – identified as a senior Taliban figure – was reportedly killed in both March and August 2010. In March 2012 the Washington Post reported that in 2006, ‘At times [in Pakistan], the agency had only three working Predator drones.’

Daily Times reported in 2010 that “unidentified gunmen killed a local Taliban commander identified as Maulvi Noor Muhammad in North Waziristan.”