PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) — At least five people were killed when a missile fired from Afghanistan hit a suspected rebel hideout Saturday in Pakistan's South Waziristan, a known hub of Al-Qaeda, an official told AFP.
"A missile apparently fired from across the border hit a compound near Wana and initial reports say five people died," said a security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Local military spokesman Major Murad Khan told AFP that "an incident involving an explosion happened in South Waziristan but we do not know what caused the incident."
A local intelligence official said the missile struck the house of a tribesman in the Zelli Noor area just outside Wana, the region's main town.
The official said the owner of the house had recently rented it out to some "foreigners", a term used in Pakistan to describe Al-Qaeda fighters.
Unconfirmed reports from the area said among the dead were four foreigners, the official added.
There has been a series of missile attacks on militants in Pakistan in recent weeks attributed to US-led coalition forces or CIA drones based in Afghanistan.
Al-Qaeda chemical and biological weapons expert Midhat Mursi al-Sayid Umar was killed in a similar missile attack in July. The Egyptian, 54, also known as Abu Khabab al-Masri, had a five-million-dollar bounty on his head.
Pakistan's northwest has been wracked by violence since hundreds of Taliban and Al-Qaeda rebels fled there after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001.
US forces say the border area is being used as a launching pad for attacks on coalition troops.
Pakistan's fragile coalition government, which pushed US ally Pervez Musharraf to resign as president on August 18 over impeachment threats, is under heavy international pressure to combat rebels on the Afghan border.
But violence linked to the country's role in the "war on terror" has killed nearly 1,200 people in suicide and bomb attacks across Pakistan in the past year.
Pakistan's army said earlier Saturday that 40 militants died in an air strike that targeted a rebel stronghold in the northwestern Swat region.
Fighter jets bombed hideouts in Peochar valley, a stronghold of top Taliban cleric Mullah Fazlullah, late Friday.
Local officials said Fazlullah, who since 2007 has been leading a violent campaign to enforce hardline Islamic Sharia law in the area, escaped the attack but his group suffered massive damage.
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