(Previous Incident Code: Ob316 )

At least four people were killed in the first drone strike for 24 days. Tribesmen reported as many as six drones hovering over the area ‘since the afternoon, spreading panic among the residents’. One drone ‘fired two missiles at the time of sunset’, a local security official said. They reportedly hit 15 minutes apart, although intelligence officials said three missiles hit the building. Hashim Khan, a local tribesman, told NBC News five bodies were recovered from the debris ‘when two drones flying over the area disappeared’.

The missiles hit a house in the Manzarkhel area of Datta Khel. Officials and witnesses said the strike hit ‘after a double-cabin pickup truck entered the premises’. Haji Gul Badin, a local shopkeeper, said: ‘The bodies of the militants were severely burnt and it was hard to identify them.’

However two Pakistan intelligence officials said, “Two foreign militants believed to have been residing in the house were among those killed.” After the strike militants reportedly moved the bodies to an unknown location. This was the third consecutive strike to hit a target in Datta Khel, a village close to the Afghan border and around 40km from Miranshah, the main population centre in North Waziristan. Sources within the political administration told Dawn the four dead were members of a militant group controlled by Hafiz Gul Bahadur.

This was the first CIA drone strike since Mir Hazar Khan Khoso (84) was selected as caretaker prime minister, running an interim administration until elections on May 11. In a statement, the Pakistani government said it ‘strongly condemns [the] US drone attack’. It added: ‘Such unilateral attacks are in contravention of International Law and counterproductive to the stability of this country.’

On April 20, tweets by two alleged militants named as Al Wathiq Billah and Barod claimed al Qaeda intelligence chief Abu Ubaydah Abdullah al Adam had died in a strike on North Waziristan, according to SITE Intelligence. Although Barod’s tweet suggested al Adam had died in a strike on the day of the tweet, no strikes were reported on April 20; Ob314 is the closest North Waziristan strike.

An unnamed US intelligence officer told the Long War Journal al Adam was a ‘very dangerous operative’ who was ‘on the target list’, adding: ‘He is essentially al Qaeda’s intelligence and internal security chief.’ Al Adam was a Palestinian national raised in Saudi Arabia, The News reported. He had replaced Mohammad Khalil Hasan al Hakaymah (aka Abu Jehad al Misri) on his death in a drone strike on November 1 2008 (B38).