Pakistan: Jets target N. Waziristan, up to 6 die

(ISLAMABAD, Pakistan) Pakistani fighter jets targeted suspected Taliban hide-outs in a tribal region near Afghanistan on Sunday, killing as many as six people and raising the odds of a future military offensive there, intelligence officials said.

Elsewhere in the northwest, two bomb explosions killed two people and wounded 15 more in Upper Dir district, police said. The district sits at the edge of Swat Valley where Pakistan army says it is wrapping up a two-month-old offensive against Taliban militants.

Pakistan's military has been targeting the Taliban in several northwestern areas since May, when it launched the Swat offensive to oust the militants, who sought to impose their harsh interpretation of Islam over large areas and are accused of plotting attacks on American troops across the border in Afghanistan.

Sunday's airstrikes in North Waziristan hit several homes near the Afghan border, two intelligence officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to media. The officials said six people died and several were wounded. They did not say if the dead were militants.

Two local residents, however, said that two people were killed and seven injured, and that all the victims were tribesmen. The witnesses, Shanawat Khan and Akhtarullah, told The Associated Press via phone that three local tribesmen's homes were hit in the Degan village area, roughly 25 miles (40 kilometers) from Afghanistan.

Pakistan's armed forces are laying the groundwork for a full-scale offensive against Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud in South Waziristan, but in recent days, clashes with insurgents and statements by militant leaders in neighboring North Waziristan have raised the possibility of army action there as well.