U.S. drones fired five missiles at a home in a Pakistani tribal region near the Afghan border Friday, killing at least six people, Pakistani intelligence officials said. The strikes come during an unusually tense time for Pakistan-U.S. relations, and a day after Pakistan's army chief warned that such attacks were counterproductive.
Five people were also wounded in the strike in Spinwam village in North Waziristan, the two intelligence officials said. The exact identities of the victims were not immediately clear, but North Waziristan hosts Islamist militant factions accused of targeting Western forces in neighboring Afghanistan.
Pakistan-U.S. relations sunk to new lows this year after an American CIA contractor in January shot and killed two Pakistanis he said were trying to rob him. A March missile strike that allegedly killed dozens of innocent tribesmen also angered Pakistani leaders.
During a visit here Wednesday, Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the U.S. joint chiefs of staff, accused Pakistan's military-run spy service of maintaining links with the Haqqani network, a major Afghan Taliban faction.
Hours later, a Pakistani army statement rejected what it called "negative propaganda" by the United States, while army chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani said his troops' multiple offensives against insurgent groups in the northwest are evidence of Pak
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