Drone stike kills at least 2 in Pakistan, official says

A suspected U.S. drone strike killed at least two militants Saturday morning in Pakistan’s tribal region, a local official said.

The drone fired two missiles at a militant hideout near Miran Shah, a town in North Waziristan, said Muhammad Amin, a local political official.

North Waziristan is one of the districts in the tribal region along the Afghan border.

The attack comes after at least two other suspected U.S. drone strikes this week.

On Thursday, a suspected U.S. drone fired two missiles at a militant hideout in Pakistan’s tribal region, killing eight people, Pakistani officials said. At least four militants were killed Wednesday in a suspected U.S. drone strike on a compound in the Datakhel area of North Waziristan, Pakistani intelligence officials said.

Pakistani lawmakers have in the past called for an immediate end to the drone strikes, which have been denounced for killing civilians.

U.S. officials rarely discuss the CIA’s drone program in Pakistan, though privately they have said the covert strikes are legal and an effective tactic in the fight against extremists.

The Obama administration justified its use of unmanned drones to target suspected terrorists overseas in a rare public statement last month, with John Brennan, the president’s top counterterrorism adviser, saying the strikes are conducted “in full accordance with the law.”

The program utilizes unmanned aerial vehicles, often equipped with Hellfire missiles, to target al Qaeda operatives in remote locations overseas – often on the territory of U.S. allies such as Pakistan and Yemen. Brennan said the United States “respects national sovereignty and international law” and is guided by the laws of war in ordering those attacks.

CNN’s Reza Sayah and journalist Aamir Iqbal contributed to this report.