Pakistan official says US strike killed foreign militants

ISLAMABAD - Last week's US airstrike on a Pakistani border village, which US officials said was aimed at al Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahri, killed at least four foreign militants, a senior provincial official says..

Eighteen local people were killed in the attack, as well as the foreign militants, and Pakistan has lodged a protest with US Ambassador Ryan Crocker over the attack and loss of life.

Pakistani officials say Zawahri was not present in Damadola village early on Friday when missiles fired by CIA-operated drone aircraft struck three houses.

But Fahim Wazir, Political Agent for the semi-autonomous Bajaur tribal agency, issued a statement saying: "According to the available information at least four to five foreign elements had also been killed in the incident."

The bodies of the militants killed by the missiles were taken away by their comrades "to suppress the actual reason for the attack," he said in the statement released in Peshawar, the capital of North West Frontier Province.

At least 10 to 12 foreign militants had been invited to a feast in Damadola by two Muslim clerics, Maulana Faqir Mohammad and Maulana Liaqat, said Wazir, the top federal government officer in the tribal agency.

The CIA had been hoping Zawahri was among the dead, but Pakistani intelligence officers say the Egyptian-born deputy to Osama bin Laden had not turned up for the feast, although he had been invited.

- REUTERS