US drone strikes leave 30 dead in Afghanistan, Pakistan

A series of US-led assassination drone strikes have left over 30 people dead in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan, local authorities say.

Repeated drone strikes in the province of Nuristan in eastern Afghanistan killed 20 people, while another air raid in the country’s central eastern province of Ghazni left six others dead, authorities said on Wednesday.

Statements by local officials showed that all those killed in the aerial attacks were Taliban militants.

In Pakistan’s North Waziristan near the border with Afghanistan, an attack by a US unmanned aircraft claimed the lives of five people.

The United States says its drone campaign targets militants, but eyewitnesses say many civilians have been killed in the attacks.

Meanwhile, the Taliban militants have vowed to escalate attacks on Afghan forces and US-led troops, their bases, diplomatic missions and their convoys.

The United States and its allies invaded Afghanistan in 2001 as part of the so-called war on terror. The offensive removed the Taliban from power, but insecurity remains across the country.

Thousands of Pakistanis have lost their lives in bombings and other militant attacks since 2001, when Islamabad entered an alliance with Washington in the so-called war on terror.