(Previous Incident Code: Ob161 )

According to local and internatonal news, the US launched four to six missiles at a compound and a vehicle in Ghulam Khan, north Waziristan, killing as many as 20 militants, though some reports said that civilians, including women and children, were among the fatalities.

Following the strike, reports stated that a mass grave was needed after at least 15 and as many as twenty people were killed in the drone strike.

al-Jazeera’s correspondent, Kamal Hyder, reported that one of the missiles struck a house, killing 16 people – including women and children – while other missiles struck a vehicle, killing four people.

Moreover, The News reported that “the targeted vehicle was destroyed completely while a number of rooms in the compound were also razed to ground… over a dozen inmates of the house were killed by the Hellfire missiles while none of the many people onboard the vehicle survived.”

Although most reports described the dead as alleged militants, two sources, al-Jazeera and Bureau of Investigative Journalism (BIJ), reported that civilians were among the fatalities. The first reporting about the unspecified number of “women and children” killed while the BIJ’s researchers in Waziristan identified by name five civilians, reported by villagers as having been killed (listed below), all belonging to the Utmanzai Wazir tribe.

However, in an investigation published in February 2012 based on interviews with local people, Associated Press contested whether civilians had died, reporting only that “20 militants died.”