(Previous Incident Code: Ob167 )

An alleged US drone struck a vehicle and a house in Khushali, north Waziristan, killing five people, hereof up to two reported as civilians by one source. Two or three unidentified people were additionally left wounded.

A missile fired from a CIA drone hit a vehicle as it passed through a village. GeoTV reported: “first the US drone fired two missiles on a vehicle and two of the occupants were killed, while three others escaped and hid in a shop adjacent to a house (..) The drone fired two more missiles on the shop and three of them were killed and three others were wounded,” the official said.”

While GeoTV, among others, reported that the five fatalities were militants, CNN said that two of the five killed were civilians, possibly shopkeepers.

Some later reports claimed that all those inside the shop were militants.

Moreover, two or three people were reported injured by the blasts, and will be treated as being possible civilians until their status is further clarified.

A US official has subsequently denied the civilian harm allegations, stating to the New York Times: “There were two strikes that day, and neither matches the claim. One targeted a car, killing two militants who had visited several Al Qaeda compounds that day; the other killed a handful of militants, including a top A.Q. terrorist.”

See also Ob168.