US missiles killed at least 15 militants in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal belt where the United Nations said yesterday it was suspending food hand-outs in one district after a suicide attack.

The missiles destroyed a vehicle and compound in North Waziristan, reputedly the country’s most impregnable Taliban and al-Qaeda fortress where US officials want Pakistan to launch a ground offensive to eliminate the militant threat.

Local security officials said unmanned US aircraft struck Mir Ali village, 25 kilometres east of Miranshah, the tribal district’s main town. The identities of the dead were not immediately clear, but officials believed that most of them were Pakistani, rather than Afghan or Arab fighters. The Mir Ali area is believed to be a Pakistani Taliban stronghold.

“According to initial reports a compound was hit, but later on it was confirmed that a vehicle was also hit,” said a Pakistani security official in Peshawar, the administrative capital of the northwest.

“Both the targets were in Mir Ali and hit almost back to back. We have reports of 18 militants death, but can confirm only 15 at the moment,” he said.

Intelligence officials in Miranshah put the death toll as high as 21 and said that two vehicles were destroyed by four missiles fired from US drones. Washington says wiping-out the militant threat in Pakistan’s semi-autonomous tribal belt is vital to winning the nine-year war against the Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan and defeating al-Qaeda.

The United States does not confirm drone attacks, but its military and the Central Intelligence Agency operating in Afghanistan are the only forces that deploy the aircraft in the region.