Feel good story of the day.

(LWJ) — US Predators struck toady in Pakistan’s Taliban-controlled tribal agency of North Waziristan for the first time in days, killing 12 “militants” in an area used to stage attacks across the border in Afghansitan.

The unmanned Predators or the more heavily armed Reapers fired four missiles at a compound and a vehicle in the town of Gorvak near the Afghan border, The Associated Press reported. The town is used by the Taliban as a way point before crossing into Afghanistan to fight NATO and Afghan forces.

No senior commanders from the Taliban, al Qaeda, or allied terror groups based in the area have been reported to have been killed.

The strike in North Waziristan took place just days after outgoing CIA Director Leon Panetta claimed that al Qaeda was on the verge of defeat, and has less than two dozen key operatives left in the organization due to 10 years of attrition fighting US forces.

Panetta claimed the documents seized during the raid that killed Osama bin Laden showed that al Qaeda was devoid of leaders experienced in executing attacks in the West. Panetta did not release the names of the operatives, but said that al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri, and Anwar al Awlaki, the ideologue and operational commander based in Yemen, were among them.

Panetta’s view of al Qaeda on the brink of defeat is not shared by US military and intelligence officials contacted by The Long War Journal. Some of the officers and officials have reviewed the bin Laden documents.