(Updated: Originally published November 10, 2006)
After doing the traditional fade from the headlines, here comes the potentate of Pakistan to soothe his beleagured population's suffering!
They are so lucky!
"American Strike in January Missed Al Qaeda’s No. 2 by a Few Hours" by CARLOTTA GALL and ISMAIL KHAN
PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Nov. 9 — The aftermath of a new strike on Oct. 30 on a madrasa, or religious school, in the same district of the tribal region of Bajaur, close to the Afghan border. That strike killed a reported 83 people.
Despite the Pakistani government’s announcement that it had conducted the precision-guided strike on the madrasa, residents of the area said that they believed that it was also carried out by a United States Predator drone, which they heard overhead.
Helicopters arrived 10 to 15 minutes later and fired several rockets into the hillside, said Haroon Rashid, a member of Pakistan’s Parliament representing the religious party, Jamaat-e-Islami, and who lives nearby. A Pakistani security official confirmed that pilotless drones were flying over the area in the days around Oct. 30.
The strike set off rallies and demonstrations in the tribal areas and Pakistan’s cities, protesting the high number of casualties and the perceived American involvement.
This on the heels of the January incident when pilotless aircraft were trying to get the elusive, ghostlike, Al-CIA-Duh leader Zawahiri (who looks tremendously like a white man, acting badly):
A strike by an American Predator drone in Pakistan’s tribal areas in January... killed a reported 18 people," and set off a similar public backlash. Still, "in an effort to quell the public anger over the madrasa bombing, Pakistani officials disclosed more details about the strike.
Here is the murderer himself:
President Pervez Musharraf and his chief military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, have said that the men killed were militants in terrorist training and that they were in no way innocent students.
Pakistani intelligence officials have briefed journalists and released copies of infrared camera film showing the compound and its inhabitants in the days before the bombing. In the film, lines of men dressed in loose tribal clothes are seen exercising in the yard of the compound early in the morning. In one part of the film, a bonfire is burning in the center of the yard.
The men, who appear as shadowy figures because the camera picks up their body heat and shows it as black, filter out of a building, which an intelligence official said was their living quarters, and line up in rows. Trainers walk among the rows of men, who appear to do stretches, jog in circles and at one point lie motionless on the ground.
American security officials have said that they shared intelligence of the target with Pakistan prior to the strike, which suggests that the surveillance footage came from an American drone.
The men would start their exercise at 4:30 a.m.... The strike occurred shortly after 5 a.m., hitting the men as they were exercising in the yard, causing maximum casualties. Many of the bodies were in pieces after the strike, witnesses said. Most of the dead were local tribesmen from Bajaur, with some more from adjoining areas.
Couldn't possibly have been innocents doing exercises, Musharaff says!
Yeah, not like Muslims must arise before dawn to pray, and it's not like Muslims would like to exercise early in the morning (like all us good American joggers), and it's not like a school would have a physical education component!!!
These were TERRORISTS!
Bajaur is a mountainous tribal agency north of Peshawar that runs along one of the most inaccessible areas of Afghanistan, bordering the Afghan provinces of Kunar and Nuristan, where American troops are based. It has been a base of Islamic militant fundamentalism since the 1980s, when religious tribal leaders created a local movement, Tehreek Nifaz-e-Shariat Mohammadi, aimed at setting up Shariah, or Islamic law, and supporting the jihad that was being waged in Afghanistan against the Soviet occupation at the time.
Ooooooh, the tribal leaders are responsible for all this!
It's not like Pakistan's ISI and our CIA had any role in setting these guys up against the Soviets, and it's common knowledge that the Taliban was Pakistan's tool in Afghanistan.
The ISI helped set them up and support them -- until September 11, 2001, that is!
Even though the Pakistani government was close to signing an agreement with the tribal elders of Bajaur aimed at curbing militancy, Pakistani officials and Western diplomats admit that Mr. Liaqat [an alleged terrorist] was far beyond the control of the government and expressed satisfaction that he has now been removed from the scene. President Musharraf, at a dinner last week in Islamabad for Prince Charles, vowed to conduct more such strikes if necessary.
A precision airstrike, which appears to have killed only people inside the compound, would also have provided a warning to others running similar compounds in the area. “This would send a clear message that this cannot go on,” the official said. “They will meet the same fate.”
That gives elders every incentive to cut a deal with a government that you can not trust, expresses satisfaction in the killing of your tribesman, and tells you the same will happen to anyone else around that we deem a "terrorist."
Pilotless US drones will obliterate your mud homes!!!!
