Originally published on November 21, 2013
A suspected U.S. drone attack killed six people, including a senior member of the militant Afghan Haqqani network, in a strike on an Islamic seminary in northwestern Pakistan Thursday morning.
At least three rockets were fired at the seminary just before sunrise, Fareed Khan, a police officer, said in a Reuters report.
The strike took place in the Hangu district of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province that is considered a "settled area" in Pakistan. It is one of the first U.S. drone attacks to occur in Pakistan beyond the country's remote, semi-autonomous tribal regions. It is also the first drone strike to occur in Pakistan since Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud was killed on November 1.
Two members of the Taliban-linked Haqqani network were killed in the strike. One of them was Maulvi Ahmad Jan, an adviser to Sirajuddin Haqqani, the leader of the militant network.
The number of drone strikes in Pakistan peaked in 2010 with more than 100 attacks that year. Most occurred in North Waziristan, headquarters of the Haqqani network in Pakistan.
