A pair of US drone strikes in Pakistan's north-western tribal region killed at least 14 militants, including a key Taliban commander whose militia focused on attacks in Afghanistan, officials and tribal sources said Thursday.
Maulvi Nazir was killed when missiles fired late Wednesday from a pilotless aircraft struck a house near Wana, the main town of the South Waziristan tribal district, which borders Afghanistan, an intelligence official said on the condition of anonymity.
Tribesmen in Wana confirmed Nazir's death in the US drone attack, the first on Pakistani territory in 2013. It also killed at least five other rebels, they said.
"Maulvi Nazir has undoubtedly embraced martyrdom," a tribesman in Wana who requested anonymity said by telephone. "His funeral prayers were offered Thursday afternoon in Azam Warsak," a town 15 kilometres from Wana.
The tribesman said thousands of people attended the prayer service and most shops at the main market in Wana were closed. His burial also took place Thursday but where it occurred was not immediately clear, members of Nazir's militia said.
Another drone attack in the neighbouring North Waziristan tribal district early Thursday killed at least eight insurgents, intelligence officials said.
US drones fired multiple missiles at a vehicle in the Gundai area near Mir Ali town, destroying it, the officials said. Another missile struck the same site after the supporters of those killed arrived to retrieve the bodies, they said.
Nazir's group has been blamed for attacks on US and other targets in Afghanistan, but it has an unofficial non-aggression agreement with the Pakistani military.
In November, the Taliban leader survived a suicide blast that killed at least six people, including some of his supporters.
Although no group claimed responsibility for that bombing, it was believed to have been carried out by his rivals related to Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud.
A rift has existed between the two groups since late 2008 when Nazir opposed the presence of Uzbek fighters in the region, and his rebels flushed out dozens of them from South Waziristan.
According to the Long War Journal, a website that tracks terrorist networks and the global fight on terrorism, Nazir openly supported Mullah Omar, the supreme leader of the Afghan Taliban, who have been waging a decade-old war against the Afghan government and its NATO allies.
Nazir worked closely with al-Qaeda, according to the website. His group was one of the four major Taliban groups in the Shura-e-Murakeba, an alliance formed by al-Qaeda in late 2011, the website said, including the Pakistani Taliban movement and the Haqqani network.
The group vowed to join hands and "refocus efforts against the US in Afghanistan," the journal said.
In June, Nazir's group was the first of the Taliban entities to ban polio vaccinations in its area, claiming that the United States was using the programme to gather intelligence for drone strikes. Other groups in the Taliban movement followed suit.
Pakistan opposes the US drone strikes along the Afghan border, calling them a violation of Pakistan's sovereignty.
But US officials said the drones have become potent weapons in the fight to eliminate Taliban and al-Qaeda figures.