Yesterday's drone strike was also reported on by the Times of India which added; "Sources said that Arab militants were guarding the compound which was a no-go area for the locals. "They barred all access within three kilometers of the facility", sources confided."
Interesting if true.
And the drones, quite suddenly, are back at it. Drones have struck two other locations in North Waziristan, which is an unusual pace.
According to Dawn and the News, at least six or eight militants are dead. The first strike involved five Hellfire missiles against a compound and a vehicle just to the left of Miramshah, the capital of North Waziristan. The second drone strike was further west in the Datta Kheil region. There's less information about the second strike.
This would make three drone strikes in two days, or five for the month so far. The pace of drone strikes grew in the last months of the Bush administration and even more under the Obama administration. The pace spiked at the end of December after the suicide bombing at Combat Outpost Chapman in Khost, Afghanistan.
Ahmeh Rashid has a must read in Wednesday's Washington Post;
The United States still sees the battle in Afghanistan as a two-sided counterinsurgency, and its focus is on the military situation. In fact, Afghanistan is facing multidimensional threats involving all of its key neighbors.