Pakistani officials: Suspected US missiles kill 16, page 1

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Two suspected American missile strikes killed 16 alleged militants in a northwestern Pakistani tribal region Saturday, intelligence officials said, a sign the U.S. is unwilling to stop using the tactic despite heightened tensions between the two countries over NATO's recent border incursions. A surge in drone-fired missile strikes in Pakistan along with coalition operations along the frontier suggest Western forces are cracking down on insurgents who easily move across the porous border between Afghanistan and Pakistan — something Islamabad has been slow to do despite pleas from Washington. Western officials say some of the recent CIA-controlled, unmanned drone-fired strikes — which in the past five weeks have reached an unprecedented rate — were aimed at disrupting a terror plot against European cities.

A Pakistani border guard stands near Afghanistan-bound NATO trucks parked on the roadside in Pakistani tribal area of Khyber on Friday, Oct. 1, 2010. Pakistan closed the Khyber Pass supply route for U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan on Thursday after a coalition helicopter attack mistakenly killed three Pakistani soldiers at a border post, raising tensions in a vital relationship for both Islamabad and Washington.

A Pakistan traffic police officer signals to stop a truck, carrying supplies for NATO forces, which heads toward border point Torkham, Saturday, Oct. 2, 2010 in Peshawar, Pakistan. Some 150 trucks were still waiting for Pakistan to reopen the border crossing at Torkham so they could deliver their supplies to Western troops in Afghanistan.

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