Islamabad, Pakistan – Missiles fired by Pakistani helicopters destroyed a religious school on the Afghan border Monday that the military said was a front for an al-Qaeda training camp, killing 80 people and prompting strong protests against the country’s president and the United States.
About 10,000 tribesmen, including armed militants, rallied today in the northwestern town of Khar near the site, chanting: “God is Great,” “Death to Bush! Death to Musharraf!” and “Anyone who is a friend of America is traitor.” Islamic leaders and al-Qaeda- linked militants had called for nationwide demonstrations to condemn what they claimed was an American assault on Pakistani soil. The army said those who died were militants, but furious villagers and religious leaders said the predawn missile barrage killed innocent students and teachers at the school, known as a madrassa.
U.S. and Pakistani military officials denied American involvement and rejected claims that children and women died in the strike, which flattened the building in the remote northwestern village of Chingai, 2 miles from the Afghan border.
Pakistan’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, has been under intense pressure, particularly from the U.S. and Afghanistan, to rein in militant groups, particularly along the porous Pakistan-Afghan frontier, where Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri are believed to be hiding. The Pakistani leader, along with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, met with President Bush in Washington last month to address the issue.
Among those killed in Monday’s attack was Liaquat Hussain, a cleric who had sheltered militants in the past and was believed associated with al-Zawahri. The raid was launched after the madrassa’s leaders, headed by Hussain, rejected government warnings to stop using the school as a training camp for terrorists, said an army spokesman, Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan.
“These militants were involved in actions inside Pakistan and probably in Afghanistan,” Sultan told The Associated Press.
Militant groups in Bajur are believed to ferry fighters, weapons and supplies to Afghanistan to target U.S. forces there and Pakistani soldiers on this side of the ethnic-Pashtun majority tribal belt.
