PESHAWAR, Pakistan   A suspected US missile strike destroyed an al-Qaeda and Taleban hideout in a Pakistani tribal area Thursday, killing 13 alleged militants including several Arabs, security officials said. Residents of Azam Warsak village in South Waziristan , that a house was blown up by a missile fired from a pilotless drone and the loud blast was heard miles kilometres away in the rugged valley. US drones have launched several strikes on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border targeting members of Osama bin Laden’s network, although Islamabad never confirms such attacks due to issues of national sovereignty. The attack comes a month after Bin Laden’s operational number three, Abu Laith al-Libi, was killed in a missile strike on January 29 in the neighbouring Pakistani tribal area of North Waziristan. “A house used as a den by al-Qaeda and Afghan Taleban militants was hit by a missile. Thirteen people were killed and around 10 were wounded,” a senior Pakistani security official told AFP. “There was no immediate information about the presence of any high-value target,” the official said;-A security source based in the northwestern city of Peshawar, which adjoins the lawless tribal belt, said the missile was fired by a US drone at about 2am Thursday (2100 GMT Wednesday). Another security official said most of the dead were Arabs. Armed militants cordoned off the site after the missile strike, residents said. They said four unidentified “guests” had arrived late Wednesday at the destroyed house, although their identities were not known;-South Waziristan is also the base of Baitullah Mehsud, an al-Qaeda-linked warlord accused by Pakistan of masterminding the slaying of former premier Benazir Bhutto, but officials said the strike was not in the area he commands. A spokesman for the US-led coalition force based in Afghanistan said it had “no reports” that either it or the separate NATO-headed force were involved in the strike. Pakistani forces were not immediately available to comment on the incident.

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