Pakistan: US triple drone strike kills 18

Three US drone strikes have killed at least 18 people on the volatile Afghan-Pakistan border, officials say.  The first two attacks hit a compound and seminary in the South Waziristan tribal area, officials said. The third hit a vehicle travelling on the border. They come days after al-Qaeda operative Ilyas Kashmiri was reported to have been killed in a US strike in the area.  Militants have vowed to avenge his reported killing, as well as the death of Osama Bin Laden last month. On Sunday, at least 18 people died in a bomb blast at a bakery in the garrison town of Nowshera in northwest Pakistan.   Earlier, another bomb explosion at a bus stop on the outskirts of Peshawar killed six people. Both attacks are being blamed on the Pakistani Taliban. Monday's drone attacks targeted a compound and a religious seminary in the mountains near Wana, according to reports.  There were "foreigners" among those killed, say reports, though their identities were not immediately known. United States officials do not routinely confirm that they have carried out drone attacks, but analysts say that only US forces have the capacity to carry out such strikes in the region.  More than 100 raids were reported last year in the troubled tribal areas along the Afghan border.  Many militants, some of them senior, have been killed in the drone strikes, but hundreds of civilians have also died. Correspondents say that in the past the drone strikes have had the tacit approval of the Pakistani authorities, although Pakistani leaders always denied secretly supporting them.  In recent months, senior Pakistani security officials have reportedly been pressing for a limit to such operations.   From BBC News