Reuters AlertNet Lite - Al-Zawahri visited attacked Pakistani madrasa in past

Reuters AlertNet Full site

NEWSDESK

Al-Zawahri visited attacked Pakistani madrasa in past

31 Oct 2006 17:36:28 GMT
Source: Reuters

Previous | Next

Activists of Jamat-e-Islami party burn a U.S. flag during a protest held in Karachi October 31, 2006, to condemn an army attack on a religious school in the Chenagai area of the Bajaur tribal region bordering Afghanistan. More than 15, 000 armed Pakistani tribesmen protested on Tuesday over a Pakistan Army helicopter attack on an al-Qaeda-linked religious school that killed around 80 suspected militants.
Reuters/ATHAR HUSSAIN

(Releads, new throughout)

By Anwarullah Khan

KHAR, Pakistan, Oct 31 (Reuters) - Al Qaeda Number Two Ayman al-Zawahri was a past visitor to a madrasa destroyed by a Pakistan Army helicopter attack, but he was not there when the missiles struck on Monday, senior Pakistani security officials said.

Several other al Qaeda luminaries had passed through the religious school run by pro-Taliban cleric Maulana Liaqatullah, who was killed in the airstrike along with around 80 of his followers, the officials told reporters a day after the attack.

Among the other known militants to have frequented the madrasa at Chenagai village, near the Afghan border in the Bajaur tribal region of northwest Pakistan, was Abu Obaida al-Misri.

An Egyptian, like Zawahri, al-Misri was identified as the mastermind of a plot to blow up U.S.-bound airliners flying from London's Heathrow airport that was foiled earlier this year.

The officials say he was a mentor to Rashid Rauf, a British Muslim arrested in Pakistan in August, who was said to be a key figure in the conspiracy.

No major militant figure was believed to have been present when the army attacked, and orders for the assault were given in anticipation that the militants were about to be sent to fight -- possibly to launch suicide attacks on NATO and Afghan forces.

"The madrasa was under surveillance since July when the activity started picking up pace," said a senior official.

Last January, a CIA-operated Predator missile attack targeted Zawahri in Bajaur's Damadola village near the Afghan border.

Intelligence officials said a handful of al Qaeda operatives at a parley hosted by Liaqatullah were killed. But Zawahri was a no-show and reports that al-Misri was killed proved incorrect.

The Pakistan government had been trying to persuade militant tribesmen to agree peace terms along the lines of accords brokered earlier in the two most restive tribal regions -- North and South Waziristan.

But officials said Liaqatullah and his comrade Maulana Faqir Mohammad, who rallied fighters at the site of the destroyed madrasa immediately after the attack, ignored all warnings.

The officials showed reporters aerial footage shot through a night vision lens of rows of men exercising before daybreak, just an hour before the missiles struck the compound.

TRIBALS SEETHING

Tribesmen said the dead, mostly young men aged between 15 and 25, were merely students. But, President Pervez Musharraf, speaking at a seminar in Islamabad, said they were all militants.

"We know who they were. They were doing military training," Musharraf said.

More than 15,000 armed tribesmen protested against the attack in Khar, Bajaur's main town, and Islamist politicians stoked anti-Western and anti-Musharraf sentiment among ethnic Pashtuns in several towns around North West Frontier Province.

Nowhere is Musharraf's alliance with the United States more unpopular than in the Pashtun tribal belt straddling the Pakistan-Afghan border.

The tribesmen in Khar showed their loyalty with shouts of "Long Live Osama" and "Long Live Mullah Omar".

"Our jihad will continue and God willing, people will go to Afghanistan to oust American and British forces," Maulana Faqir Mohammad, a pro-Taliban cleric, told the crowd of turbaned tribals, many carrying Kalashnikovs and wearing bandoliers, and a few shouldering rocket launchers.

A mountainous region that is difficult to access, Bajaur lies across from the eastern Afghan province of Kunar, where U.S. troops are hunting al Qaeda and Taliban militants.

In contrast to Waziristan, the army has so far not put troops on the ground in Bajaur, though they man border posts there.

Islamist politicians said the attack on the school was really carried out by a U.S. Predator drone aircraft, but Pakistan's military spokesman and a U.S. spokesman in Kabul denied it.

"The entire operation was carried out by our forces. All resources including intelligence was our own," Major-General Shaukat Sultan said, though officials said the intelligence came from various sources.

AlertNet news is provided by

Email this article Send comments

Countries

Small country map
© 2004 Europa Technologies Ltd.

Reset map

• Afghanistan profile
· View map

• Pakistan profile
· View map

MORE >>

NGO latest

• Stern figures don't add up for world's poor say Christian Aid
Christian Aid - UK

• STERN TEST FOR WORLD LEADERS ON CLIMATE CHANGE
Christian Aid - UK

• People in Need completed an EC funded water supply project in Northern Afghanistan
PIN - Czech Republic

• The UMCOR Hotline
UMCOR - USA

• Winter threatens with another emergency
CWS

MORE >>

Latest news

• Al-Zawahri visited attacked Pakistani madrasa in past

• INTERVIEW-UN food aid chief bows out of "overwhelming" job

• Central African govt asks France to help repel rebels

• FACTBOX-Security developments in Iraq, Oct 31

• Diplomats battle to save Somali talks, avert war

MORE >>

Last updated:Tue Oct 31 17:37:42 2006