Originally published on November 21, 2013<br /><br />A suspected U.S. drone attack killed six people, including a senior member of the militant Afghan Haqqani network, in a strike on an Islamic seminary in northwestern Pakistan Thursday morning. <br /><br />At least three rockets were fired at the seminary just before sunrise, Fareed Khan, a police officer, said in a Reuters report.<br /><br />The strike took place in the Hangu district of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province that is considered a "settled area" in Pakistan. It is one of the first U.S. drone attacks to occur in Pakistan beyond the country's remote, semi-autonomous tribal regions. It is also the first drone strike to occur in Pakistan since Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud was killed on November 1.<br /><br />Two members of the Taliban-linked Haqqani network were killed in the strike. One of them was Maulvi Ahmad Jan, an adviser to Sirajuddin Haqqani, the leader of the militant network.<br /><br />The number of drone strikes in Pakistan peaked in 2010 with more than 100 attacks that year. Most occurred in North Waziristan, headquarters of the Haqqani network in Pakistan.
