ISLAMABAD (AP) – A U.S. missile strike on Saturday killed two suspected militants in a Pakistani tribal region that is considered a base for insurgents accused of attacking Western troops across the border in Afghanistan, officials said.

The missile, which was fired from an unmanned drone, flattened a house near North Waziristan’s Mir Ali town, said two intelligence officials on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak to media on the record. They said one of the men was foreign. The United States frequently uses missile strikes to target Taliban and al-Qaida operatives in Pakistan’s northwest, especially the lawless tribal regions near the Afghan border where many insurgents hide.

Pakistan publicly protests the strikes as violations of its sovereignty, and the attacks are unpopular among people in this Islamic nation.

However, Pakistan is believed to have assisted U.S.

authorities in some of the missile attacks.

The U.S. doesn’t publicly acknowledge the existence of the

covert, CIA-run program.