MIRANSHAH, Pakistan — Suspected US missiles killed five militants in Pakistan's Al-Qaeda-infested tribal belt on Thursday, not far from where 30,000 troops are battling a major offensive against homegrown Taliban.
The attack, which Pakistani officials said was carried out by a US drone, targeted a house in North Waziristan, where Washington says Islamist militants fighting 100,000 US and NATO troops in Afghanistan are hiding.
"It was a US drone attack which targeted a compound of a local tribesman, Musharraf Gul, in Norak village," a senior security official told AFP.
Two missiles were fired from a US drone at 1:30 am (2030 GMT Wednesday).
Another security official confirmed the attack and said "Taliban rebels were using the compound. Five militants were killed and four others wounded."
"It is not clear if there was any high-value target," the official said, adding: "We also do not know yet the identity of the militants."
Local residents and security officials said Musharraf Gul, aged between 28 and 30, was a cab driver who had fraternised with militants for more than 18 months.
"Musharraf opened fire after the missile strike in a bid to keep villagers away. He buried the bodies of militants killed in the attack with the help of fellow rebels, who are still guarding the place," said a security official.
Although Pakistan opposes US drone attacks on its soil as a violation of its sovereignty, the government's public condemnation of the strikes has subsided since a US missile killed Taliban warlord Baitullah Mehsud in August.
Around 63 attacks have killed more than 610 people since August 2008, fanning anti-American sentiment in nuclear-armed Pakistan, where around 2,440 people have died in a wave of militant attacks since July 2007.
The US military does not, as a rule, confirm drone attacks, but its armed forces and the Central Intelligence Agency operating in Afghanistan are the only forces that deploy the pilotless drones in the region.
Thursday's strike comes with around 30,000 Pakistani troops, backed by warplanes and attack helicopters, pressing a major offensive against Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in neighbouring South Waziristan.
Pakistan has vowed to crush the TTP, holding the umbrella organisation responsible for a surge in militant attacks and bombings targeting civilians and security personnel across the country.
Pakistan launched its three-pronged offensive on October 17 and the military has claimed to have captured a string of TTP-held towns and villages, and most of Mehsud's once-operational base of Sararogha.
The military provides the only regular information coming from the frontlines. None of the details can be verified because communication lines are down and journalists and aid workers barred from the area.
So far, the military says more than 390 militants and 37 troops have been killed since the offensive began -- far fewer military losses than in previous offensives into South Waziristan that ended with controversial peace deals.
Although South Waziristan is the focus of Pakistan's current offensive, Islamist militants are embedded in large swathes of the mountainous northwest and have recently stepped up attacks in other tribal districts.
Militants on Thursday blew up a second girls' school in less than a week in the lawless district of Khyber, on the main supply line for US and NATO troops fighting in landlocked Afghanistan, local officials said. Related article: Militants blow up girl's school
"Militants used 25 to 30 kilograms (55 to 66 pounds) of explosives to blow up the two-storey school on the outskirts of Bara town," local administration official Farooq Khan told AFP.
Khan said the school had 26 rooms, including a science laboratory, but that the explosion gutted eight rooms.
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