The attacks, the suspected work of US drones, came as Pakistan reported that Maulana Fazlullah, the most-wanted Taliban commander in the Swat valley, also in the northwest, was injured during a recent army offensive.
In the first missile strike, in the early hours of the morning, six projectiles fired from an unmanned drone aircraft flattened an alleged training centre for Islamist extremists in South Waziristan, killing eight militants.
Hours later, another suspected drone targeted a convoy of vehicles carrying Taliban militants in the same province, officials said.
"At least 25 militants have been killed in the US missile strike," a senior security official in the area told AFP, referring to the second attack.
I certainly didn't expect our attacks to continue into this year after they began in earnest last summer. But in my own defense, I didn't expect the Pakistani people to finally--at long last--turn against their own jihadis.
As long as the Pakistani people continue to support their own army's offensive against the jihadis, we can keep shooting over the army's shoulder in mutually reinforcing efforts.
UPDATE: The Pakistanis continue to worry that our strikes will undermine public support, however:
"It hurts the campaign rather than helps," said Pakistan army spokesman Maj. Gen Athar Abbas, arguing that the air strikes alienate local tribes whose support the military needs to defeat Mehsud.
Washington does not directly acknowledge responsibility for launching the missiles, which have killed civilians as well as militants and contributed to anti-U.S. sentiment in Pakistan.
Far more civilians are killed by the Pakistani miltiary operations than our precision strikes. Yet our strikes are the questionable ones.
As long as Pakistanis are offended that we kill jihadis, we have a problem within Islam.
