Threats of bloody retribution and accusations of American involvement erupted across Pakistan’s tribal areas this week after the missile strike that killed 80 people in a radical madrasa.
About 20 000 tribesmen crowded into Khar, about 10km from the school, which was shredded by air strikes on Monday. Cries of ”Down with America” rang out as radical clerics addressed the turbaned protesters, many of whom brandished Kalashnikovs or rocket launchers.
”Our jihad will continue, God willing,” thundered Maulana Faqir Muhammad, a firebrand preacher with links to al-Qaeda. ”And our people will go to Afghanistan to oust American and British forces.”
Inayat ur Rehman claimed to have a ”squad of suicide bombers” waiting to kill Pakistani soldiers, imitating Iraqi attacks on Americans. When he asked if the crowd would support the measure, the tribesmen replied with a united ”Yes”.
The protesters claimed that Monday’s strike had killed innocent religious students, not international terrorists. But the Pakistani government insisted the school was a front for an al-Qaeda meeting facility.
One official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the madrasa had frequently been visited by Osama bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and by Abu Ubaidah al-Masri, an Egyptian militant who is suspected of having masterminded the alleged plot to bomb trans-Atlantic airliners. But he said neither was at the madrasa at the time of Monday’s attack, Associated Press reported.
Samina Ahmed of the Crisis Group thinktank said the strike was counterproductive and would spell ”big trouble” for Pakistan and the US.
”An attack on a madrasa in which 80-something people are killed is great propaganda for the Taliban,” she said. ”This will inflame opinion among Pashtuns on both sides of the border and boost recruitment.”
Tensions were increased by widespread suspicions of US involvement in the attack. Last January a pilotless Predator drone struck at a house just 3km from the Bajaur madrasa, killing 18 people but missing its target, al-Zawahiri.
The US’s role in the latest strike is unclear. President Pervez Musharraf insisted that his solders were solely responsible, an assertion supported by the US military in Afghanistan.
Pakistan’s chief military spokesperson, Major General Shaukat Sultan, said the US provided intelligence that led to the strike — a statement he later tried to withdraw. But he refused to deny US involvement.
Sahibzada Haroon, an MP for the Jamaat Islami party, who lives nearby, said he heard two large explosions ”so powerful they shook the earth and rattled our doors and windows” early on Monday morning. Fifteen minutes later Pakistani army helicopters arrived, fired a handful of rockets and left.
”Those were small thuds — nothing in comparison to the big explosions that preceded them minutes earlier,” Haroon told Dawn newspaper. ”I have no doubt in my mind that it was done by the Americans and we are now making a futile attempt to cover it up.” — Â