What's going on: Pakistani officials say 16 killed by US drone-fired missile

Plus: Tyler Clementi's family hopes son's death will serve as call for compassion

APIn this Jan. 31 file photo, a U.S. Predator drone flies over the moon above Kandahar Air Field, southern Afghanistan.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Two suspected American missile strikes killed 16 alleged militants in a northwestern Pakistani tribal region Saturday, intelligence officials said, a sign the U.S. is unwilling to stop using the tactic despite heightened tensions between the two countries over NATO’s recent border incursions.

A surge in drone-fired missile strikes in Pakistan along with coalition operations along the frontier suggest Western forces are cracking down on insurgents who easily move across the porous border between Afghanistan and Pakistan — something Islamabad has been slow to do despite pleas from Washington.

Western officials say some of the recent CIA-controlled, unmanned drone-fired strikes — which in the past five weeks have reached an unprecedented rate — were aimed at disrupting a terror plot against European cities.

The missile strikes Saturday struck two separate houses in Datta Khel village in the North Waziristan tribal region, killing eight suspected militants at each site, three Pakistani intelligence officials said.

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