Details are emerging on the victims in the Jan. 23 US air-strikes on Pakistan [2]—the first since President Barack Obama [3] took office. In the first strike on Zeraki village near Mir Ali in North Waziristan, three missiles hit a compound of tribal elder Khalil Khan Dawar, killing him and eight others on the spot. Khalil Dawar was reported to be associated with the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan militia of Baitullah Mehsud, and four Arab militants were said to be among the dead. But in the other attack, in the Gangikhel area of South Waziristan, two missiles hit the house of pro-government tribal elder Malik Deen Faraz, killing him, his three sons and a grandson.
Meanwhile that day, two Pakistani troops were killed when a suicide bomber rammed his vehicle into a military checkpoint in the Fizzagat area of the Swat Valley, North West Frontier Province. (Dawn [4], Pakistan, Jan. 24; BBC News [5], Jan. 23)
