US drone kills 5 in Pakistan’s North Waziristan

At least five people have been killed in an attack by a US assassination drone in an area in Pakistan’s troubled northwestern tribal region near the border with Afghanistan.

Speaking to AFP on Thursday, a senior Pakistani security official claimed that at least five militants were killed in the drone attack in the town of Datta Khel in the North Waziristan tribal region.

The attack reportedly hit a compound of Taliban militants, who are currently operating across the troubled region.

Another Pakistani security official in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar confirmed the US drone attack and the number of the casualties.

Washington regularly uses drones for airstrikes and spying missions in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal belt near the Afghan border.

While senior US officials claim the targets of the attacks are militants, witnesses maintain that civilians have been the main victims of the airstrikes.

US President Barack Obama has repeatedly defended the use of the controversial drones as “self-defense.”

The United Nations, however, says the US drone attacks are “targeted killings” that flout international law.

The UN and several human rights organizations have identified the US as the world’s number one user of “targeted killings,” largely due to its drone attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Philip Alston, the former UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, said in a report in October 2010 that the attacks were undermining the rules designed to protect the right of life.

Alston also said he feared that the drone killings by the US Central Intelligence Agency could develop a "playstation" mentality.

The US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 prompted Taliban militants to cross the border into Pakistan.

International organizations and human rights groups say the US drone strikes in Pakistan pose a growing challenge to the international rule of law.

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