PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Three American missile attacks killed 54 alleged militants Friday close to the Afghan border, an unusually high number of victims that included commanders of a Taliban-allied group that were holding a meeting, Pakistani officials said.
The attacks took place in the Khyber tribal region, which has been rarely struck by American missiles before in the past three years. That could indicate an expansion of the CIA-led covert campaign of drone strikes inside Pakistani territory.
The Obama administration has intensified missile attacks in northwest Pakistan since taking office, desperate to weaken insurgent networks there that U.S. officials say are behind much of the violence against U.S. troops just across the frontier in Afghanistan.
The first strike targeted two vehicles in the Sandana area of the Tirah Valley, killing seven militants and wounding another nine. The men were thought to belong to the Pakistani Taliban, one of the country’s largest and deadliest insurgent groups.
Later, missiles hit a compound in Speen Darang village where members of Lashkar-e-Islam, a Taliban affiliate known to be strong in Khyber, were meeting, killing 32 people, among them commanders. The third strike took place in Narai Baba village and killed 15 militants, the officials said.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. U.S. officials do not acknowledge firing the missiles.
Also Friday, police said nine people were killed by mortar rounds fired by suspected Sunni extremists in two attacks in the northwest. The presumed targets in Hangu district and the nearby tribal area of Kurram were Shiite Muslims, said Hangu police chief Abdur Rasheed.
