(Previous Incident Code: Ob113 )

AN unspecific number of civilians were killed and wounded in the third of three related attacks in Kurram, a strike killed three alleged Haqqani militants and damaged a nearby mosque.

The Bureau spoke with a witness of the strike in October 2013. The witness asked to remain anonymous. Speaking in Islamabad, he told the Bureau he was staying in a hotel in Bagan when the attack came. He said: ‘The drones were above; I didn’t sleep. They were firing about three missiles on the target. We were sitting outside the mosque in a garden and saw it bang. Three persons were dead and two were injured. They were villagers – they were not criminals.’

Khenmat Khan, 30-35, Said Khan and Nammatullah were traders who had combined their business, he said. The witness told the Bureau Khemat Khan was his neighbour. He was a ‘very serious man’, he added.

Although the witness could not provide the exact date, he described a strike that took place at night in Kurram Agency in Baggan or Taaloo Gaig, that hit a house and a mosque, and that killed three people. This is the strike that most closely matches that description.

In January 2014 the Bureau published an internal Pakistani record of drone strikes. It said a US drone fired four missiles at a mosque and killed two ‘locals’ in this attack.