Reports: 16 killed from missile attack in Pakistan's tribal area

ISLAMABAD, March 16 (Xinhua) -- At least 16 people were killed Sunday when missiles hit a residential compound in Pakistan's tribal region near the Afghan border, local tribesmen and eye witnesses said.

They were quoted by TV channels as saying that several foreigners were staying at the residential compound in the South Waziristan tribal area when the missiles were fired.

There was no official word about the attack.

The private Geo TV said that several others were also wounded in the missile attack at the house of a tribal leader. A barrage of seven missiles were fired at his house, some four kilometers from Wana, the center of South Waziristan.

The injured were taken to local hospitals in Wana.

Pakistani Taliban sealed the area after the attack and did not allow any one to reach there, TV reports said, adding that local tribesmen believed that the missiles were fired Afghanistan.

They said that they had also seen a drone flying over the area before the attack, the practice adopted by the U.S.-led coalition forces in the past to strike inside the Pakistani territory.

This is the second missile strike in the Pakistani territory in less than 10 days.

Pakistan has lodged a protest against the previous strike in which several were killed after the NATO forces in Afghanistan confirmed the attack in Pakistan.

On Saturday, up to seven American citizens were injured in a blast near an Italian restaurant in the Pakistani capital Islamabad.