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The brutal raid claimed the lives of more than 80 civilians, including children as young as seven. |
KHAR, Pakistan — Pakistani troops backed by missile-firing helicopters attacked Monday, October 30, a madrasah (religious school) near the Afghan border on claims of being a training camp for al-Qaeda, killing tens of people, amid outcries that the victims were all students killed in their sleep.
"Information we have received from certain local sources and intelligence sources suggests that there may be up to 80 dead," chief military spokesman Major-General Shaukat Sultan told Agence France Presse (AFP).
"We had information about the presence of 70 to 80 miscreants, including some foreigners, who were engaging in militant training in this madrasah and we carried out an operation using gunship helicopters and precision weapons," he added.
"Most of the compound was destroyed."
Security officials said a local Taliban commander known as Maulvi Liaqat, who ran the madrasah and was wanted by the authorities, was among the dead.
The strike near Khar, the main town in Bajaur tribal agency, was the biggest for months in the restive frontier region where many Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters are believed to have sought sanctuary since 2001.
Bajaur was the scene of a savage US air strike in January on claims of hunting Al-Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri. The 13 January raid killed at least 18 people, mostly civilians.
Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said in an interview released Thursday, September 21, that the US blackmailed his country by threatening to bomb it "back to the Stone Age" after the 9/11 attacks unless it supported the war on terror.
Shortly after 9/11, Pakistan abandoned its support for the ruling Taliban in Afghanistan and became a front-line ally in Washington's o-called war on terror.
The South Asian country has since deployed around 80,000 troops on the rugged border with Afghanistan to hunt pro-Taliban and Al-Qaeda elements.
Brutal
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Qazi Hussain Ahmed branded the attack as "brutal and barbaric," calling for a massive strike in the region. (Reuters)
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Villagers were wailing in grief as they collected mutilated bodies, some belonging to children, from the rubble, reported Reuters.
"There were pupils as young as seven who were also killed," said Syed Wali, a villager in Chenagai, according to Reuters.
Eyewitnesses said the badly mutilated bodies were beyond recognition as the limbs were being collected by local people in cloth sheets.
The madrasah was filled with about 80 local students who had resumed studies after `Eid Al-Fitr, which marks the end of the month-long fasting in Ramadan, is not a national holiday.
Most of the occupants were asleep while some had awoken for pre-dawn prayers, when the helicopters swooped on the facility.
There are around 12,000 madrasahs in Pakistan, often offering free religious education and board for more than one million Pakistani children, especially in areas neglected by state education services.
Pakistan has placed them under close scrutiny in the wake of the 7/7 terrorist attacks in London, carried out by four British Muslims, including three of Pakistani origin.
Following the attack, thousands of tribesmen rallied in Khar chanting "Down with America," "Down with Bush" and "Down with Musharraf".
Jamaat-e-Islami, Pakistan's most influential Islamic party, condemned the attack.
Party leader Qazi Hussain Ahmed branded the slaying of pupils as "brutal and barbaric," calling for a massive strike in the region.
A cabinet minister from Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, Siraj ul-Haq, resigned in protest over the attack.
"The government has launched an attack during the night, which is against Islam and the traditions of the area," he told the BBC during a funeral of one of the dead.
"They were not given any warning. This was an unprovoked attack on a madrasah.
"They were innocent people." |
