Pakistan: Gunmen kill 18 at restaurant

Motive for attack unclear; earlier Friday, U.S. drone strike leaves 12 dead.

QUETTA, PAKISTAN — Gunmen on motorcycles opened fire at a roadside restaurant in southwestern Pakistan on Friday, killing 18 people, officials said. In the northwest, a U.S. drone strike killed 12 suspected militants near the Afghan border.

The people killed in the restaurant attack in the remote town of Turbat in Baluchistan province were Pakistanis travelling with smugglers to Europe through neighboring Iran, said Abdul Razzaq, a government official in the area. Two people were also wounded, he said.

It’s unclear what motivated the attack. Baluchistan regularly experiences violence from both Islamist militants and nationalists who demand a greater share of the province’s natural resources.

Earlier, U.S. drones fired a total of five missiles at a compound in Miran Shah, the main town in the North Waziristan tribal area, according to Pakistani intelligence officials. In addition to the militants killed, six others were wounded, some of them critically, they said.

Those hit were thought to be loyal to Hafiz Gul Bahadur, a militant commander whose forces frequently target U.S. and other NATO troops in neighboring Afghanistan, the officials said. A similar drone attack Sunday killed eight of Bahadur’s fighters.

U.S. officials rarely speak publicly about the covert CIA drone program in Pakistan.

The strikes are extremely unpopular in Pakistan because many think they mostly kill civilians, a claim disputed by the U.S. Pakistani officials regularly denounce the attacks as violating the country’s sovereignty.