By Shaiq Hussain
Special to The Washington Post
Saturday, October 4, 2008

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Oct. 3 -- Suspected U.S. missile strikes killed 24 people in Pakistan's restive tribal region on Friday, Pakistani intelligence officials said.

Of those killed, 21 were insurgents, including 16 Arabs and five local Taliban fighters, one of the officials said. In addition, he said, two women and a child were killed.

The attack is apparently the latest in an escalating U.S. campaign of strikes originating across the border in Afghanistan and aimed at al-Qaeda and Taliban targets in the rugged tribal lands of Pakistan. The attacks have generated a substantial backlash in Pakistan, where insurgents have used the strikes as a tool for rallying public opposition to U.S. anti-terrorism efforts.

The Pakistani government, a U.S. ally, has bristled at the strikes and has vowed to defend its territory. U.S. officials, however, say the attacks are necessary because Pakistan is not doing all it can to stamp out insurgent hideouts.

A Pentagon spokesman said he had no information on Defense Department operations in the area Friday.

Friday's attack, reportedly carried out by drone aircraft in North Waziristan, was aimed at two brothers who are active in the Taliban, the Pakistani officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

"Two missiles fired by the drone aircraft hit the houses of one Daud Jan and his brother Abdur Rehman around 10 p.m. in Muhammad Khel village, which is 20 miles west of Miranshah, the main town of North Waziristan," one official said.

The official said the brothers are Afghan nationals who had moved to North Waziristan 30 years ago from Khost province in Afghanistan.

It was not immediately clear Friday night whether the brothers had been killed in the strikes, but they were reported to have been at the house at some point Friday evening. "At the time of attack, several local and foreign militants were having dinner with them," the official said.

Pakistan's military spokesman, Maj Gen. Athar Abbas, said the matter was being investigated. The intelligence officials said, however, that examining the wreckage was difficult because the Taliban had sealed off the site. In many parts of the tribal region, the government has little control and insurgents have filled the vacuum.

The United States is believed to have carried out eight missile strikes, as well as a ground-based assault, in Pakistan's troubled frontier regions during September. The strikes follow a surge in Taliban attacks on NATO forces in Afghanistan.

Intelligence officials in North Waziristan claimed a U.S warplane bombed another Pakistani border village early Friday morning.

Abbas, however, said those reports were false. He said that the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force carried out the airstrike inside Afghanistan near the border area and that the Pakistani army had been informed ahead of time.

"There was no intrusion and no border violation," he said.

Staff writer Peter Finn in Washington contributed to this report.