U.S. Strike Hits Pakistan Village

Taliban Source Tells CBS News 2 Main Suspects Missed, But Subcommander Killed In Strike

(CBS/AP)  Several explosions reportedly caused by missile strikes from unmanned U.S. drone aircraft hit a house and seminary linked to a key Taliban commander in northwestern Pakistan on Monday, officials said.

An intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of his job, said at least six people were killed, including three foreigners and two children, in what appeared to be the latest in a string of attacks by U.S. forces on Islamic militant havens in Pakistan's tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan.

The targets apparently belonged to Jalauddin Haqqani, a veteran of the jihad against Soviet troops in Afghanistan in the 1980s who American commanders describe as one of their most dangerous foes.

A senior Pakistani security official told CBS News' Farhan Bokhari on Monday that Haqqani and his son both survived the attack, which he called "the second U.S. intelligence failure since last Wednesday," when American commandos carried out the first known raid involving U.S. ground forces inside Pakistan.

Haqqani and his son, Siraj, have been linked to attacks this year including an attempt to kill Afghan President Hamid Karzai and a bold attack on a luxury hotel in Kabul. Haqqani network operatives plague U.S. forces in Afghanistan's eastern Khost province with ambushes and roadside bombs.

One of Jalauddin Haqqani's subcommanders told CBS News later Monday that Siraj had been in the house just several hours before the strike and his brother, Mohammed Haqqani, was killed by the missiles.

The militant, who spoke Monday to CBS News' Sami Yousafzai via telephone, said Mohammad was also a subcommander, under his brother, who had recently returned from Afghanistan where he was at one point surrounded by U.S. forces.

According to the subcommander who spoke to CBS, the Haqqanis owned four houses in the area and have been moving among them frequently - suspecting an attack was imminent from the increased number of U.S. aircraft seen flying overhead in recent days.

The seminary had been closed after previous attacks in the area.

The intelligence official said six people were killed and 15 injured - mostly women and children - when four missiles hit the seminary and three hit adjacent houses. He said militants surrounded the area afterward.

A second intelligence official gave a similar account.

Maj. Murad Khan, an army spokesman, confirmed blasts in the village of Dande Darba Khel, in the North Waziristan tribal area about 2 1/2 miles west of Miran Shah. He said 12 were injured.

"The cause of the explosions is being investigated," Khan said.

Bakht Niaz told The Associated Press by phone that he and several other shopkeepers saw two Predator drones flying over the area before several explosions around 10 a.m. (0400 GMT).

"We got out of our shops and ran for safety," Niaz said.

He said he saw two wounded people being taken away for treatment and roughly another dozen wounded in the local hospital.

The U.S. has pushed Pakistan to crack down on insurgents, warning they are using pockets of the northwest as safe havens from which to plan attacks on American and NATO forces in neighboring Afghanistan.

Pakistan has struggled to contain rising militancy within its borders, and the fledgling government has tried both peace talks and military operations to stop the insurgents.

The U.S.-led ground assault last week on a Pakistani tribal region, which was said to kill at least 15, prompted sharp protests from Islamabad and heightened speculation that Washington has given a green light for more aggressive cross-border strikes. Several missile attacks in the area in recent weeks also have been attributed to U.S. forces.

Asif Ali Zardari, who won Pakitan's presidential election on Saturday, has vowed to be tough on militancy.

[hamiltongrad]

Good for us. And it is about time.

Can you imagine Hitler held up say in Switzerland, and mooning us ? Do we attack ? You bet. This WAR.
This is not the JOKER held up in some LAIR .

[petro49l]

Bin Laden said that the Coalition could kill hundreds of Taliban. It makes for good propaganda against the Americans. Coalition missile strikes against Taliban eliminates Al Qada''s rivals. U.S. strategy has made Osama rich and famous. Bin Laden dominates the region''s illicit production of potent street heroin. Al Qada money is funding terror operations all over the world. Who can stop a well-financed, technical organization?

[shylove2]

Somehow I think the villagers will remember the bombs.
It make me wonder how McCain can giddily sing Bomb, Bomb, Iran. That speaks volumes, much more than an "I abhor war! " in a scripted speech! His wife even works to remove landmines, I guess...but
It is also true that bombs and landmines in Southeast Asia are still maiming men, women, and children long after the wars are forgotten, do you think they may still remember who put them there? Bush says we should have stayed and maybe we should have, stayed to clean up the inhumane mess we left. And as for the exodus we remember the pictures of, well we could have negotiated and prevented that from happening instead we wouldn''t even dream of it. You never give in to your enemy even if it means multitudes of lives destroyed in the takeover and a few saved that we make so much of.

[twohares]

Good people generally do good things.
Bad people generally do bad things.
But for good people to do bad things, that takes religion.
- Steven Weinberg

[twohares]

There is no god.
I don''t care who we took the land from.
Might doesnt make right, but it DOES win the war.
Muslims didnt care how many non-military were killed in 9/11, why should we care about collateral damage to them? History is written by the winners.
I say, turn the entire middle east into one big melted-glass parking lot.
Nuke ''em all... let allah sort ''em out.
Then, we''ll just TAKE the oil.
Why be nice? To appease a fictional god? There is no god. And if there is, he obviously doesnt care.
What kind, loving, all-powerful god would let this happen to his creation?
Oh, yeah... that''s right... he has a plan that us mere mortals cant possibly understand.
If thats the plan, count me out.

[downsteamjim]

If Jalauddin could just get a make over and maybe a *** change, this could all end peacefully.

I am a Native Born American; my family has lived in America for more than 200 hundred years! Any American who is born in America is a Native Born American! You are referring to other immigrants who came to America about 10,000 years ago - they are eastern European & Asian immigrants. But there have been Western European remains found in the Northwest portion of American that has been carbon dated to more than 10,000 years old. So, I am a Native American and proud of it!

So, how the heck do you figure we should give back land to another group of earlier immigrants who most likely fought and killed other tribes for the land? Like the old saying %u201CPossession is 9/10ths ownership%u201D.

I have great respect for the Native American Indian and their culture, but I am a Native American and I have great respect for my culture as well. I do not fee the need to feel guilty for acts of my ancestors, nor should the any culture feel guilty for the acts of their ancestors. We need to be proud of who %u201CWe Are%u201D, and try to do the right thing as often as we can.

[downsteamjim]

To Scream name: These isolationist conservatives must include the father of the Kennedy clan who was so pro nazi that he lost his post as ambassodor to Britian.

[cdfoxtrot3]

What''s that Republican mantra from the convention? The one they shout out no matter what?

U-S-A. U-S-A.

Let me hear it.

[wogerwabbit]

And the news media continues to spread terrorist propaganda. We should be firing missiles at CBS headquarters.

Posted by Neo267 at 11:56 AM : Sep 08, 2008

Actually, neoconazis are the subversives we should eliminate first.