U.S. ramps up drone attacks

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – An unusually large barrage of missiles fired by remotely piloted U.S. drones killed 16 people in the tribal area of North Waziristan on Thursday, a possible indication that the U.S. plans to escalate such attacks after Pakistan declined to step up its operations there.

The attacks came in a week when top U.S. military officials visited Islamabad and asked that Pakistani authorities do more to go after insurgent groups that are based in North Waziristan but are focused on killing U.S. troops across the border in Afghanistan.

Pakistani officials say their military is stretched thin by an operation in South Waziristan, and that now is not the time to expand the campaign into the adjacent territory to the north. U.S. authorities have countered that if Pakistan does not go after the groups, the U.S. will.

Thursday’s attacks included one set of strikes that officials said involved 10 missiles fired from five drones – an unusually heavy concentration of firepower on a single target. Officials said 15 people died in those strikes, including a well-known al-Qaida commander, while one person was killed in a separate, earlier strike.

North Waziristan is the suspected home of the top al-Qaida leadership, as well as the network of Afghan insurgent leader Siraj Haqqani.