A volley of seven missiles destroyed what had been either a terrorist safe house or the home of a terrorist leader in South Waziristan, killing 16. The wire services only have very preliminary reports, and no one knows for sure who actually fired the missiles yet. It appears either Pakistan or the US have improved their intelligence of late, as this is the second such targeted attack on a safe house in the last few weeks:

At least 16 people have been killed in a missile strike near the border with Afghanistan that destroyed the house of a suspected militant leader, Pakistani state television said Sunday.

Seven missiles were involved in the strike in a tribal area of South Waziristan, the station said, but it did not indicate from where the missiles were believed to have originated.

If Pakistani television has reported this, one has to think that the Pakistanis may have initiated the attack, but that’s not a certainty. Also, the casualty total should be taken with a grain of salt at this point. AP has it at 16 dead, while Reuters has it as 10 wounded. Reuters also notes that some of the wounded were “Arab nationals”, which sounds as though whoever fired the missiles hit the intended target.

Keep an eye on the wires for updates. Success will eventually be measured by the martyrdom announcement on the jihad websites, as well as DNA matches on whatever’s left of the terrorists.

Update: According to an eyewitness in this CNN report, the missiles came from an unmanned drone.  If true, that’s one mystery solved — the Pakistanis don’t have unmanned drones with missile-launch capacity.  Looks like the US reached out and touched the Taliban and/or AQ.  The home belonged to someone who only went by the name Noorullah, which doesn’t dig up much on Google, except for Noorullah Zadran, who used to act as a spokesman for the Taliban in the US.  Zadran got convicted of tax evasion two years ago here, though.  He also turned out to be an FBI informant, which means he wouldn’t be hanging out in Pakistan; in fact, he’s now selling real estate in Long Island.