Militant compound hit in US drone strike

US drones have fired missiles into a compound in northwest Pakistan where militants gathered, killing several people in North Waziristan district on the Afghan border. Pakistani officials said unmanned American aircraft fired four missiles into the building in the Razmak area, 60 kilometres south of the region's main town Miranshah in the Taliban and al-Qaeda-infested badlands on Thursday. Officials were divided on the death toll, with three different sources claiming the numbers of dead were variously four, five and seven. The fresh strike came one day after US missiles destroyed a Pakistani Taliban base in South Waziristan, killing up to 18 militants including possible al-Qaeda fighters in the deadliest such reported strike in three months. 'The target was a compound. The militants were in a room that was hit. Four were killed, three were wounded,' said a senior Pakistani official. 'Four missiles were fired on the compound in Badamshah village,' he added. US officials say Pakistan's tribal belt provides sanctuary to Taliban fighting for 10 years against US troops in Afghanistan, al-Qaeda groups plotting attacks on the West and Pakistani Taliban who routinely bomb Pakistan. North Waziristan is the most notorious of all Pakistan's seven semi-autonomous tribal districts and has been a major focus of US pressure on the Islamabad government to take sterner action against Afghan insurgents.  Thursday's strike was the 64th reported in Pakistan's tribal belt so far this year, according to an AFP tally. The United States refuses to discuss drone strikes publicly, but the program has dramatically increased as the Obama administration looks to withdraw all foreign combat troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014. The Pakistani government is understood to assent to the program despite popular opposition at home, where anti-Americanism is frequently exploited by nationalist politicians and the conservative religious right. Pakistan-US ties deteriorated sharply this year over a unilateral American raid that killed Osama bin Laden in May and over accusations that Pakistani intelligence was involved in a September siege of the US embassy in Kabul. At talks in Islamabad last month, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called on Pakistan to take action within 'days and weeks' on dismantling Afghan militant havens and encouraging the Taliban into peace talks. On Wednesday, three suicide bombers blew themselves up in their car on the sea front in Pakistan's largest city of Karachi, killing two policemen when they were intercepted.