ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN — In what could herald an intensified U.S. campaign against Islamic insurgents in Pakistan's tribal areas, a suspected American missile attack killed at least nine people near the Afghan border, local officials said Wednesday.
It was not immediately known whether any senior insurgent figures were among the dead, but officials in the South Waziristan tribal region said those killed included "foreigners," often used to mean Al Qaeda operatives and commanders from outside Pakistan.
American military officials in Afghanistan and the U.S. Embassy in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, disavowed knowledge of the strike, which tribal sources and Pakistani military officials said was carried out late Tuesday. But such attacks against Al Qaeda members and other significant militant figures by CIA-operated drones are rarely acknowledged publicly by Pakistani or American officials.
Adding to the air of crisis, a late-night suicide strike outside a police station in the eastern city of Lahore killed at least five people as crowds gathered to begin celebrating Pakistan's Independence Day today.
The incidents, coupled with a recent bout of intense fighting in Bajaur, another tribal area abutting the Afghan border, came as Pakistan wrestled with a growing political battle over demands that President Pervez Musharraf step down or face impeachment.
In a boost to the impeachment drive by the ruling coalition, the regional assembly of southern Sindh province overwhelmingly approved a nonbinding resolution Wednesday calling on the president to agree to a vote of confidence by regional and national lawmakers or relinquish his post. Two other regional parliaments approved a similar resolution this week.
Musharraf, a longtime U.S. ally who until late last year was also chief of Pakistan's military, has resisted attempts by the 5-month-old ruling coalition, made up of former opposition parties, to oust him.
The president, a onetime elite commando, has shown no signs of acquiescing to critics' demands. But some longtime allies have been deserting him or distancing themselves as public pressure mounts for him to step aside. Media reports for days have been rife with speculation that Musharraf's resignation is imminent.
Addressing a pre-Independence Day ceremony Wednesday night, Musharraf made no direct reference to his predicament, but accused unnamed foes of "conspiracies" against state institutions.
