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 MIRANSHAH: A US drone attack on a compound in Pakistan's northwestern tribal belt on Wednesday killed at least five militants, local security officials said. The target of the drone strike was a house in Inzarkas village in Dattakhel area, around 35 kilometres (20 miles) west of Miranshah, the main town of North Waziristan. "The drone fired two missiles on a house, at least five militants have been killed," an intelligence official in Miranshah told AFP. A security official in Peshawar also confirmed the attack and the death toll. The strike is the latest in a series of US operations in the region which are believed to be targeting Taliban and Al-Qaeda extremists plotting attacks on Europe. Residents in Miranshah said drones were still hovering in the sky while militants have surrounded the area after the attack. A security official in Peshawar said a vehicle parked outside the house was also destroyed in the attack. Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said Tuesday that US drone attacks on Pakistani territory were "counter-productive". "We have successfully isolated the militants and local tribesmen, because we want that local tribesmen should support us, but when there is a drone attack that unites them (the tribesmen and the militants) again," he said. "And this is the reason we say that they are counter-productive," he told reporters in northwestern city of Charsadda. The United States has massively ramped up its drone campaign in Pakistan's lawless northwest tribal region on the Afghan border, amid intelligence claims of a Mumbai-style terror plot to launch commando attacks on European cities. The plot was caught in its early planning stages, according to media reports. The missile strikes have reached record levels in the past month, killing more than 150 people since September 3, but have also raised tensions with Islamabad, amid reported US criticisms of Pakistan's efforts to stamp out the Islamist threat in the area. The United States does not as a rule confirm drone attacks, but its military and the Central Intelligence Agency operating in Afghanistan are the only forces that deploy the pilotless aircraft in the region. Officials in Washington say previous drone strikes have killed a number of high-value targets, including the former Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud. Pakistan's ambassador in Washington, Hussein Haqqani, told the BBC that the increase in strikes in North Waziristan came after intelligence agencies uncovered a plot to attack multiple targets in Europe. The Al-Qaeda plot was reportedly going to target Britain, France and Germany with a wave of commando-style attacks on key landmarks including Paris's Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame Cathedral and Berlin's Brandenburg Gate. AGENCIES  |