WANA, Pakistan, (Reuters) – A U.S. drone aircraft  fired missiles yesterday into Pakistan’s South Waziristan  region, killing 10 militants, officials said, ahead of an  expected Pakistani military offensive in the area.

A Pakistani military helicopter crashed in the northwest of  the country, killing all 26 security personnel on board,  officials said.

The helicopter camed down because of a technical fault about  20 km (12 miles) from the city of Peshawar on the mountainous  border of the Orakzai and Khyber ethnic Pashtun tribal regions,  the official said.

The United States, facing a growing Afghan insurgency, began  stepping up drone attacks on militant strongholds in lawless  enclaves on the Pakistani side of the border a year ago despite  Pakistani complaints.

Three missiles were fired at militant hideouts in an area  near the Afghan border controlled by Pakistani Taliban leader  and al Qaeda ally Baitullah Mehsud, killing 10 militants and  wounding seven, two intelligence agency officials said.

“The missiles hit an office of Mufti Noor Wali, who was once  in charge of training militants for suicide attacks,” one of the  officials said.

It was not known if Wali was among the dead, or if any  foreign militants had been killed, they said.
The attack came as Pakistani troops stepped up pressure on  Mehsud’s strongholds, carrying out air strikes by jet fighters  to soften up targets before an expected full-scale offensive.

The drone attack also came a day after thousands of U.S.  Marines launched an offensive against the Afghan Taliban in the  southern Afghan province of Helmand, and as British troops  seized important canal crossings in support of that effort.