PESHAWAR: A US drone attack destroyed a house belonging to the father-in-law

of Pakistan’s wanted Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud and killed two militants today, security officials said.

The building targetted today belonged to Maulana Ikram-ud-Din, one of Mehsud’s fathers-in-law, in Laddah village in South Waziristan — in Pakistan’s tribal badlands on the Afghan border, Pakistani officials said.

Relatives said Mehsud’s wife, the daughter of Ikram-ud-Din, was killed and that four children in the house were wounded, but there was no official confirmation that the woman had died.

“The missile strike took place at around 1:30 am (1930 GMT Tuesday), two militants were killed,” one security official told AFP news agency.

“The missile was fired by a US drone,” the official said. A second Pakistani security official also

confirmed it was the house of Ikram-ud-Din, a pro-Taliban cleric but not a commander.

“It wasn’t clear whether he (Ikram-ud-Din) was in the house at the time of the attack,” he said, putting the death toll at two militants.