(Previous Incident Code: Ob125 )

According to reports, villagers fled in panic as up to 11 drones attacked two housing compounds linked to the Haqqani Network. Eleven to 15 people were killed in the attack, inlcuding five civilians.

‘As the US drones came over the village people started shouting and running here and there shouting ‘run, drones have come,” a local tribesman told AFP.

Among up to fifteen dead were eight rescuers, killed when the drones struck again. The News quoted a local Pakistan government official as saying “We have some reports about the killing of rescue workers but the house struck by the drones was said to be a militant hideout.”

The paper added, “Villagers said the drones first fired four missiles, killing seven people, including some believed to be militants. After an interval of 15 minutes, the villagers said, the drones fired eight more missiles and targeted the tribesmen and some militants engaged in rescue work.”

The Bureau’s own field researchers reported that of eight rescuers killed, three were Taliban, the other five villagers named as ‘Yahya, Samin, Niamatullah, Shahzad and Ilyas belonging to the Dawar tribe.’