Wana, Pakistan, July 3 (Reuters): A US drone aircraft fired missiles today 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 crashed because of a technical fault about 20km from Peshawar on the mountainous border of the Orakzai and Khyber ethnic Pashtun tribal regions, the officials said.

Three missiles were fired at militant hideouts in an area near the Afghan border controlled by Pakistani Taliban leader and al Qaida 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 to soften up targets before an expected full-scale offensive.

The drone attack also came a day after thousands of US Marines launched an offensive against the Afghan Taliban in the southern Afghan province of Helmand, which shares a 200km desert border with Pakistan’s Baluchistan. British troops also seized important canal crossings in support of that effort.

Saeed appeal

The Pakistan foreign office today said the government had not filed any appeal so far challenging a court order freeing Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Mohammed Saeed from detention. Lahore High Court had on June 2 freed Saeed, who India alleges is the mastermind of the November 26 Mumbai attacks, from house arrest.

Earlier today, Punjab government officials said the appeal had been filed in the supreme court’s registry in Lahore.