A suspected U.S. missile strike killed two people in Pakistan near the Afghan border, officials and a witness said Tuesday, as two prominent U.S. senators visited Islamabad amid flaring tensions over the Mumbai attacks in India.

The Monday-night strike in Tabi Tolkhel village, in the North Waziristan tribal region, appeared to be the latest in a surge of alleged U.S. missile attacks on militant targets in Pakistan's northwest border region, long bedevilled by al-Qaeda and Taliban extremists. More than 30 have been reported since August.

It also was the latest example of how militancy and the fight against it are engulfing this nuclear-armed Muslim nation from all sides.

India blames a Pakistan-based militant group for the attacks in Mumbai that killed more than 160 people, and the U.S. has joined in the international chorus demanding that Pakistan crack down on violent extremists in its territory. The missile strikes have long been an indication of U.S. impatience with Pakistani efforts.

U.S. Senator John Kerry, the next foreign relations committee chairman, was in Pakistan on Tuesday. A number of U.S. officials have visited India and Pakistan since the attacks in India's commercial capital last month.

Like Kerry, Senator Christopher (Kit) Bond also arrived Monday for meetings with top Pakistanis, U.S. Embassy spokesman Lou Fintor said without elaborating.

The latest suspected U.S. strike set a house on fire, said Ajab Khan, a village resident who went to the scene.

He said he saw two bodies brought out and three wounded people taken away in a vehicle. Suspected Taliban militants surrounded the house, Khan said — a common occurrence after such strikes.

Three local intelligence officials confirmed the account, citing informants. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to media.

Pakistan routinely protests the strikes as violations of its sovereignty, saying they inflame anti-American sentiment. U.S. officials rarely acknowledge or comment on individual strikes, many of which are said to originate from CIA-run unmanned drones.

However, American leaders have previously said the strikes have helped kill some important militant leaders who use Pakistani territory as safe havens from which to plot attacks on U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

India has blamed a Pakistan-based militant group, Lashkar-e-Taiba, for last month's attacks in Mumbai. The U.S. has said Lashkar-e-Taiba, which has long been active in the Pakistani-Indian dispute over the Himalayan region of Kashmir, has forged links with al-Qaeda.