PESHAWAR, Pakistan: A US drone strike targeted militant hideouts in Mangroti area of the North Waziristan tribal region on Saturday, killing at least four insurgents.
However, the identity of the killed militants was not ascertained yet.
Earlier in the day, the US drone strike left at least 20 militants affiliated with Islamic State (IS) dead in Achin district of Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province.
The US drone strikes in Pakistan fell to their lowest level for eight years in 2015, according to annual drone report for 2015 prepared by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism.
The report revealed that the sharp reduction was not only witnessed in US drone attacks but also in the number of people reported killed.
It said that drones hit Pakistan’s northwestern tribal region 13 times in 2015, killing between 60 and 85 people- almost half the 25 strikes in 2014 and 10 times fewer than the campaign’s peak of 128 in 2010.
Pakistan has consistently condemned the US drone attacks in its tribal areas near the Afghan border, and reiterated the call for cessation of such strikes as the country’s armed forces have already been carrying out a full-fledged military operation Zarb-e-Azb in the region to eliminate terrorism since June 2014.
