A US drone strike on a compound has killed at least ten people in northwest Pakistan's tribal region near the Afghan border, officials said.

"The drone fired two missiles on a house in Hassokhel town," 25km east of Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan, a security official said on Thursday, a day after a similar attack killed four people in the same region.

North Waziristan is a stronghold of the Haqqani network - Afghan fighters blamed for a series of spectacular attacks on Western targets in Kabul - and Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud.

Islamabad has been resisting US pressure to launch a sweeping offensive against fighters in the area.
The attack was likely to raise tensions in a standoff with Washington over NATO supply routes to Afghanistan.

The United States has been pushing Pakistan to re-open the supply routes in difficult talks that show no signs of a breakthrough anytime soon.

Pakistan closed the routes in protest against last November's killing of 24 Pakistani soldiers in a NATO air attack along the Afghan border.

US frustrations with Pakistan deepened on Wednesday after a Pakistani tribal court sentenced a doctor accused of helping the CIA find Osama bin Laden to 33 years in jail on charges of treason.

PHOTO CAPTION

A U.S. Predator unmanned drone armed with a missile stands on the tarmac of Kandahar military airport June 13, 2010.

Al-Jazeera