A US missile strike slammed into a militant hideout in a stronghold of Pakistani Taliban warlord Baitullah Mehsud on Tuesday, killing 16 militants in the tribal belt, security officials said.

The strike, carried out by a suspected unmanned US aircraft, destroyed a compound in the Zangara area of South Waziristan — part of Pakistan's lawless, tribal belt on the Afghan border where Islamist militants are holed up.

One missile struck a Taliban hideout in the hamlet of Chinakai, killing foreign and local militants, said a Pakistani security official on condition of anonymity in a reference to suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban militants.

"Sixteen militants were killed and at least eight others wounded in the missile strike. Four among the dead are foreigners and the remaining are locals," one Pakistani security official told AFP.

Another security official confirmed the number of casualties and said 12 bodies had already been pulled out of the rubble of the compound, which was destroyed in the strike.

AFP

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