US drone kills eight militants in NW Pakistan

US missiles killed eight militants early Tuesday in an attack targeting a rebel compound in a tribal district of northwest Pakistan, security officials said. The strike, which came less than 12 hours after at least 10 militants were killed in another drone attack, took place in South Waziristan's Bushnarai area close to the border with Afghanistan. "At least eight militants were killed after a US drone fired two missiles at a militant compound," a senior security official told AFP. A local security official and intelligence officials confirmed the attack and the casualties. The identities of the militants were not clear immediately clear. "The area where the strike took place is remote so gathering details takes time," the official said. Several missiles strikes have recently targeted militant hideouts in the area which is considered a stronghold of militant commander Mullah Nazir, he said. Washington has called Pakistan's semi-autonomous northwest tribal region the most dangerous place on Earth and the global headquarters of Al-Qaeda. Relations between Pakistan and the United States have deteriorated sharply since the killing of Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in the Pakistani garrison town of Abbottabad, and Islamabad has demanded an end to the drone strikes. But a total of 21 US drone strikes have now been reported in Pakistan's tribal belt since the US Navy SEALs killed bin Laden on May 2. At least 10 militants were killed when US drones fired four missiles on a compound and a vehicle in the Gorwaik area of Datta Khel town, 45 kilometres (28 miles) west of Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan late Monday. President Barack Obama's chief of staff, William Daley, confirmed in a television interview on Sunday that the United States had decided to withhold almost a third of its annual $2.7 billion security assistance to Islamabad. The bin Laden raid humiliated the Pakistani military and invited allegations of incompetence and complicity, while Washington has increasingly demanded that Islamabad take decisive action against terror networks. Pakistan's military Monday said it was capable of fighting Islamists without US assistance. "The army in the past as well as at present has conducted successful military operations using its own resources without any external support whatsoever," military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas told AFP. Abbas said the military had not been officially informed of the decision to suspend aid. The United States does not officially confirm Predator drone attacks, but its military and the CIA operating in Afghanistan are the only forces that deploy the armed, unmanned aircraft in the region. The missile strikes are hugely unpopular among a Pakistani public deeply opposed to the government's alliance with Washington and sensitive to perceived violations of sovereignty.