First drone strike in Pakistan under Trump admin kills two

PARACHINAR: A commander of the Afghan Taliban was killed when the US drone missile hit a motorcycle in Lower Kurram Agency on Thursday, the first such attack in the country under the administration of new American President Donald Trump.

Tribal sources said that the drone fired two missiles and struck a motorcycle in the Sra Ghundai area. They said that two persons, including a commander of the Afghan Taliban identified as Qari Abdullah Sabari, were killed on the spot. The other victim was also stated to be an Afghan national and was identified as Shakir. "Several drones were seen hovering over the area minutes before the attack," the locals said.

Qari Abdullah Sabari belonged to the Khost province of Afghanistan and had served as commander of the Afghan Taliban for the Paktia province. Tje sources in the Kurram Agency's political administration said that they had recovered the leg of one of the victims. They added that the incident was being investigated.

It was the first drone attack inside Pakistan after Donald Trump took over as president of the United States. There had been no drone strike in Pakistan since the May 21, 2015 assassination of Afghan Taliban supreme leader Mulla Akhtar Mansour in Balochistan. Several Pakistani and foreign militants have been killed in Fata in US drone strikes since the 9/11 attacks in the United States.

The latest drone attack in Pakistan happened a few hours before the government approved a set of reforms to bring the tribal areas into the national mainstream. According to some foreign media reports, those killed in the drone attack belonged to Haqqani militant group of Afghanistan.