US missile strike kills Pakistani Taliban leader

A Pakistani Taliban commander accused of launching cross-border attacks in Afghanistan was among 20 people killed in a suspected U.S. missile strike, a senior official said Monday.

The commander, Haji Omar Khan, died when at least two missiles slammed into a training camp in the South Waziristan tribal region near the Afghan border on Sunday night, local administration official Mawaz Khan told AFP.

"The death toll has gone up to 16 as six more bodies have been recovered from the site. Senior Taliban commander Haji Omar died in the strike," Khan said.

Another government official quoting local sources said up to 20 people were killed, mostly Pakistani Taliban fighters, adding that a team was on its way to the area to investigate.

Khan was active in attacks against the border, local residents said.

The slain commander was a senior member of the group of veteran Taliban chieftain Jalaluddin Haqqani, residents added. Many of the recent U.S. missile strikes in Pakistan have targeted Haqqani and his followers.

Suspected U.S. drones have carried out more than a dozen such missile attacks on militant targets on the Pakistani side of its border with Afghanistan since the beginning of September, killing dozens of people.

"Two missiles were fired, they hit two houses in Shakai and up to 20 militants were killed," said one of the Pakistani intelligence agency officials, referring to an area in the South Waziristan region that is a stronghold of Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud.

The strike was the latest in a series on militant safe havens in Pakistan's tribal areas that have raised tensions between Washington and Islamabad, a frontline ally in the US-led "war on terror".

U.S. forces in Afghanistan, frustrated over growing cross-border attacks from the Pakistani side of the border, have stepped up their attacks into Pakistan with missile strikes and a commando raid since the beginning of September.

No senior al-Qaeda or Taliban commanders have been reported to have been killed.

Pakistan, an important partner in the U.S.-led campaign against militancy, objects to the U.S. strikes on its territory saying they violate its sovereignty and increase support for the militants.

Mehsud is Pakistan's most notorious militant commander, blamed for a string of suicide bomb attacks in Pakistan including the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto in December last year.

He also supports Taliban militants battling U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan.

Mehsud, speaking through a spokesman, denied any involvement in Bhutto's killing in a suicide gun and bomb attack in the city of Rawalpindi, near the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.