A displaced Pakistani tribal person, who left his village due to heavy fighting between security... 
(AP)
A suspected U.S. missile strike killed two alleged militants Thursday in northwestern Pakistan, intelligence officials said, while Pakistani soldiers battled the Taliban in an insurgent stronghold elsewhere along the Afghan border.
The drone-fired missiles struck Naurak village in North Waziristan tribal area overnight, the two officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to media. A local resident's house and a car were damaged.
However, local tribesman Inayat Wazir told The Associated Press on the phone that the house was empty and that no one died.
It was not immediately possible to independently verify either claim due to the dangerous nature of the region.
The attack site is not far from South Waziristan, an al-Qaida and Taliban stronghold where the Pakistani army launched a major offensive in mid-October.
Soldiers there fought street by street through the mountainous town of Ladha, the military said in a statement Wednesday. Over the previous day, the fighting left 10 militants dead in Ladha and 30 dead across the region, it said. Eight soldiers have been injured.
The army's offensive in South Waziristan is focused on the Pakistani Taliban, a network it blames for the majority of suicide bombings in its territory. The military is deliberately not pursuing other militant groups, including those in North Waziristan, which tend to be more focused on battling U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan.
The U.S., meanwhile, has continued to launch missiles against militant targets throughout Pakistan's tribal belt. The Americans rarely discuss the attacks, and the Pakistanis publicly condemn them as violations of their sovereignty. However, many analysts believe the two countries have a deal allowing the missile attacks.
The military sees Ladha as one of the three main Taliban strongholds in South Waziristan. It has already taken control of much of another key town, Sararogha, and is expected to launch an attack soon on Makeen, which the authorities have called the "nerve center" of the Pakistani Taliban.
