U.S. expands Pakistani drone-strike zone

Baitullah Meshud , is gonna be pissed off even more now , To bad ! Baitullah , how does it feel Knowing we can strike you At will , and never even risk a U.S. soldier in doing it !

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - A pilotless U.S. drone aircraft fired a missile at a Taliban compound in Pakistan's Orakzai region on Wednesday, killing 12 people in the first such attack in the area, a security official and residents said.

The raid came a day after Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud said his group had carried out an assault on a police training center in the eastern city of Lahore in retaliation for U.S. drone attacks.

Residents of Khadizai village in the ethnic Pashtun tribal region said the missile hit a compound of a Taliban commander loyal to Mehsud, Hakimullah Mehsud, and 12 people were killed.

A security official who declined to be identified confirmed the toll in the strike, adding 13 people had been wounded.

Hakimullah Mehsud was not believed to have been in the compound at the time, another Pakistani intelligence agent said.

A Pakistani Taliban official said the missile had hit a "camp for guests" in Orakzai, which is near but not on the Afghan border, southwest of the city of Peshawar.

"We have sent our people down there but we don't know about the casualties," the Taliban official, who declined to be identified, said by telephone.

The United States, frustrated by an intensifying insurgency in Afghanistan getting support from the Pakistani side of the border, began launching more drone attacks last year.