US missile strikes kill 13 in Pak

Missiles fired by suspected US drones on Friday hit a village in Pakistan's restive Waziristan killing 13 people most of them foreign militants...

Missiles fired by suspected US drones on Friday hit a village in Pakistan8217;s restive Waziristan killing 13 people most of them foreign militants, officials said. In the fresh attack, four missiles struck the house of a tribesman, Ameer Gul, at a village Waladeen Budarn overnight killing the people, most of whom TV channels described as Arab militants.

The missile attack, the nineteenth in the tribal regions since August came even as fresh surge of violence ripped across North-western Pakistan, where police reported that an unknown gunman had made an abortive attempt to kidnap a Japanese journalist.

The journalist was wounded in the kidnap attempt along with his translator. The failed attempt comes just a day after a gunman abducted an Iranian diplomat from Peshawar.

The Pakistani Interior Ministry on Friday blamed the Taliban for the abduction of the diplomat. Pakistani officials claim that mostly civilians are killed in such attacks. However, US and NATO officials dispute this saying they have killed several key al-Qaeda and Taliban operatives in such raids.

Witnesses said that 10 out of 13 killed were Arab militants. Taliban gunmen cordoned off the missile-hit area and did not allow other tribesmen to approach. The latest strike came a day after Pakistani Foreign Ministry said that such attacks violated international law.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari had conveyed Islamabad8217;s protest over these missile strikes in the course of his meeting with the US Secretary of State Condolezza Rice in New York on Thursday.

After the meeting, the Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi had said that Islamabad had pressed US for an end to missile attacks saying, they were undermining their own operations against the militants.

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The latest strike comes as the head of the US Central Intelligence Agency CIA, Michael Hayden, described the tribal areas of Pakistan bordering Afghanistan as an al-Qaeda safe haven. 8220;Virtually every major terrorist threat that my agency is aware of has threads leading back to the tribal areas. Whether it is command and control, money, training and direction,8221; he said.

In a new threat assessment released earlier this year, the CIA has said there was influx of terrorists from these tribal areas into Afghanistan. Hayden said while Osama-bin Laden remained isolated from the day to day operations of al-Qaeda, he still enjoyed unflinching loyalty of the militants.

The CIA director said the hunt for Osama bin Laden remains America8217;s top priority.