U.S. drone strike kills 5
Five other militants in Pakistan were killed in a raid by Pakistani forces.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - A U.S. drone fired two missiles at a militant hideout in northwestern Pakistan on Saturday, killing at least five Taliban fighters, two security officials said.
In a separate operation, the military said Pakistani security forces killed five "terrorists" on the outskirts of Peshawar, where the Pakistani Taliban carried out a school massacre earlier in the week, killing 148 people, mainly children.
The attack shocked the nation and prompted a massive military response in the tribal regions along the Afghan border, longtime strongholds of both foreign and local militants. Pakistani air strikes and ground operations in the Khyber region - where the school attack is believed to have emanated - have killed around 200 militants.
The drone strike took place in the town of Datta Khel in North Waziristan, where Pakistani troops have been carrying out a major operation against local and foreign militants since June, the officials said.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media, said the men killed in the drone strike fought under local Pakistani Taliban commander Hafiz Gul Bahadur. It was not immediately clear if the drone strike was connected to the school massacre.
On Saturday, a gravedigger in Peshawar who said he never cries when he buries the dead began to weep as the bodies of massacre victims - mostly children - started arriving.
"I have buried bodies of the deceased of different ages, sizes, and weights," Taj Muhammad, 43, told the Associated Press. "Those small bodies I've been burying since yesterday felt much heavier than any of the big ones I've buried before."
Muhammad spoke during a break from the digging, as he drank green tea with one of his colleagues and his two sons who work with him.
For hours, the dead, wrapped in white sheets, were brought to the cemetery. In Islam, the dead are generally buried quickly, so most funerals were held Tuesday and Wednesday.
For the first time "I couldn't control my tears. I cannot explain but I wept. I know it was against the rules of our profession but it was the moment to break the rules," the father of eight children said.