Islamabad, May 19 (RHC)-- At least six people have been killed in a U.S. assassination drone strike in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal region near the border with Afghanistan. The strike reportedly targeted suspected militants in the Zoye Narye area of North Waziristan on Monday, Pakistan's Dawn News reported.

According to a report prepared by Pakistani lawmakers, as many as 2,199 people have been killed and 282 others injured in the U.S. drone attacks in Pakistan over the past decade.

Additionally, nearly 210 houses and 60 vehicles were reportedly damaged by the strikes. However, rights activists say Islamabad has not revealed the actual number of the deaths, which many believe stand at more than 3,000 and possibly as many as 4,000.

This is while the Pakistani government has been widely censured for allowing the U.S. military and its CIA spy agency to carry out the illegal drone strikes near the country’s border with Afghanistan as part of its targeted killing campaign in a number of Muslim countries, including Yemen, Afghanistan and Somalia.

The aerial attacks, initiated by former U.S. President George W. Bush in 2004, have been escalated under President Barack Obama, who has defended the use of the controversial drones as “self-defense.” Washington claims the targets of the drone attacks are anti-U.S. militants. People on the ground, however, dispute the claim, saying civilians are usually the victims of such attacks.

Moreover, the United Nations and several human rights organizations have identified the U.S. as the world’s number-one user of “targeted killings,” largely due to its drone attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan.