Latest US drone strike in Pakistan kills 12 suspected militants

A US drone killed at least 12 suspected militants on Friday when it fired missiles at a compound in Pakistan near the Afghan border, local intelligence officials confirmed. The death toll from the strike in the Dattakhel region in North Waziristan could rise, Pakistani authorities said. It comes just days after Washington and Islamabad resolved a protracted dispute over the use of unmanned drones, with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton apologising for an air attack that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in November. The apology paved the way for Pakistan to permit trucks carrying Nato supplies to cross into Afghanistan for the first time in more than seven months. In a further move to mend relations, Clinton is due to meet with Pakistan's foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar in Tokyo on Sunday on the sidelines of a conference on Afghanistan. Friday's strike is the latest in a string of deadly attacks launched by unmanned American aircraft. The CIA has stepped up their use of drones in North Waziristan, an area seen as a hub for militant groups aligned with the Taliban. Eight people were killed there in a drone strike on Sunday. It followed a number of other such strikes in June. Under a strategic review conducted earlier this year, the Pentagon announced it will increase the number of unmanned armed crafts in its arsenal by almost a third. But the use of drones is highly controversial, with a large chunk of the Pakistani public – as well as human rights activists around the world - resenting their use due to the high number of none military casualties. Figures from the London-based Bureau of Investigative journalism show that CIA drones stuck Pakistan 75 times in 2011, causing up to 655 fatalities. The majority of those killed were alleged militants, but as many as 126 civilians also have lost their lives, the bureau's figures suggest. Islamabad has demanded a halt in the US programme of drone attacks and their continued use has strained relations between the two countries.