Fresh US drone attack kills five in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar

At least five people have lost their lives in a US assassination drone strike in Afghanistan’s eastern province of Nangarhar.

Provincial police spokesman, Colonel Hazrat Hussain Mashraqiwal, said on Sunday that a drone attack targeted a car the previous night as it was traveling in Marsangi area of the province’s Lal Pur district, situated over 150 kilometers (93 miles) east of the capital, Kabul.

He claimed that the assault targeted Taliban militants, adding that two people were also wounded in the airstrike.

On September 9, an aerial assault against Gomal district in Afghanistan’s eastern province of Paktia reportedly left 15 members of Pakistan-based Tehreek-e-Taliban militant group dead.

In a similar incident, Afghan authorities said at least 32 people lost their lives and three others sustained injuries after a US drone pounded Gharak area in Ahmadabad district of Paktia Province.

The CIA spy agency regularly uses drones for airstrikes and spying missions in Afghanistan as well as Pakistan’s northwestern tribal belt near the Afghan border, among other places.

Washington has been conducting targeted killings through the remotely-controlled armed drones in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen.

The US says the airstrikes target members of al-Qaeda and other militants, but according to local officials and witnesses, civilians have in most cases been the victims of the attacks.

The United Nations says the US drone attacks are “targeted killings” that flout international law.