(Adds casualties, militant attack in Bajaur, byline) By Alamgir Bitani PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Jan 1 (Reuters) - A suspected U.S. drone fired two missiles on Thursday into Pakistan's South Waziristan region on the Afghan border, killing three foreign militants and wounding one, Pakistani intelligence agents said. U.S. forces in Afghanistan, frustrated by a spreading Taliban insurgency that is getting support from militant enclaves in northwest Pakistan, have stepped up strikes by pilotless drones despite Pakistani objections. One of the two intelligence officials confirming the attack said one missile hit militants travelling in a double-cabin pick-up truck. The other hit a nearby militant hideout in Karikot village near Wana, the main town in the lawless region. "It was a precision strike as there have been no civilian casualties. All the dead and wounded were militants from Turkmenistan," the official said. U.S. forces in Afghanistan carried out about 30 missile strikes in Pakistan in 2008, according to a Reuters tally, more than half since the beginning of September. The attacks have killed more than 220 people, including foreign militants, according to a tally of reports from Pakistani intelligence agents, district government officials and residents. Pakistan, under mounting international pressure to eliminate militants after November's attacks on the Indian city of Mumbai, says the U.S. strikes violate its sovereignty and undermine efforts to fight militancy by inflaming public anger. Al Qaeda and Taliban militants poured into Pakistani regions on the border, including South Waziristan, after U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban government in Afghanistan in late 2001. From their sanctuaries in the ethnic Pashtun areas that no government has ever controlled, the militants have orchestrated an increasingly deadly insurgency in Afghanistan and plotted violence in Pakistan and beyond. The United States and Afghanistan have long pressed Pakistan to do more to eliminate the militant strongholds. Pakistani forces and al Qaeda-linked militants have in recent months been fighting in other militant strongholds, mostly in the Bajaur region, on the Afghan border northeast of South Waziristan, and the Swat Valley in North West Frontier Province. Militants in Bajaur killed three people and wounded 13 on Thursday when they fired several mortar bombs at a government building in the region's main town of Khar, said senior administrative official Adalat Khan. The military has said more than 1,500 militants have been killed in Bajaur since August but there has been no independent verification of that casualty estimate. (Additional reporting by Mian Saeed-ur-Rehman and Sahibzada Bahauddin; Writing by Kamran Haider; Editing by Robert Birsel and Bill Tarrant)
A Palestinian living in Pakistan holds a placard in Islamabad, during a protest against the Israeli air strikes on Gaza December 31, 2008. REUTERS/Mian Khursheed (PAKISTAN) ...
