MIRAMSHAH, Sept 29: Six militants were killed and three injured when missiles fired by a US drone struck a house in Dergah Mandi in North Waziristan on Sunday morning.

The house caught fire and, according to sources, six people died on the spot and three were wounded.

The sources said that the dead and the woundedbelonged to Punjab and were associated with militant commander Qari Abbas who was killed in an earlier drone strike on a car in the area.

The government, says APP, condemned the US drone strike and as a violation of the country`s sovereignty and (a threat to its) territorial integrity.

The Foreign Office spokes-man called for an immediate end to US drone attacks and said Pakistan had consistently maintained that drone strikes were counter-productive, entailed loss of innocent civilian lives and had human rights and humanitarian implications. Such strikes set dangerous precedents in inter-state relations, the spokesman said in a statement.The US drone strikes, he said, adversely affected the mutual desire of Pakistan and the US to forge a cordial and cooperative relationship and ensure peace and stability in the region.

The area attacked by US drone, according to AFP, is said to be the stronghold of Afghanistan`s Haqqani network, a guerrilla faction linked to the Taliban.