Pakistan kills 80 in early morning helicopter assault on a madrassa

[BurtWorm]

I find this very strange and disturbing, seeing as Pakistan is in the middle of negotiating with political groups from this region on the border of Afghanistan, and they weren't apparently targeting anyone in particular. I mean, the Clinton administration has never been forgiven by a lot of people for carrying out Bush I's strategy against the Branch Davidians in Waco, and that was a much more ambiguous event than this one. This really looks like an act of aggression. How does this help the "war on terror?" I know the fringenut response is "80 fewer Muslims," but I think every time something like this happens, you multiply each death by some unknown factor greater than 1 to calculate the converts to radical Islamism.



http://www.guardian.co.uk/pakistan/Story/0,,1935190,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=1

80 dead in Pakistan madrasa raid


Declan Walsh in Islamabad
Monday October 30, 2006
Guardian Unlimited




Pakistani forces using helicopter gunships killed around 80 alleged militants today in a pre-dawn attack on a religious school near the Afghan border in a tribal area notorious for its al-Qaida sympathies.

The madrasa in Chenagai village in the Bajaur tribal area was a "terrorist training camp" run by a pro-Taliban cleric who had been warned to close it down, the military spokesman General Shaukat Sultan said.

Between 80 and 100 men aged between 20 and 30 were inside the building when the first rockets struck at 5am (midnight GMT). No women or children were present, he said.


But reporters at the scene said that several children, one as young as seven, were pulled from the rubble. Distraught locals collected the remains of the victims in fertiliser bags, while others took part in angry street protests in nearby villages.

...


The raid did not target any major al-Qaida figures, Gen Sultan said, but Maulana Liaqatullah, the radical cleric who ran the madrasa, was believed to be among the dead.

Bajaur, one of the seven tribal areas near the Afghan border, is regarded as a potential hiding place for al-Qaida fugitives, including Osama bin Laden. It lies across the border from Kunar, the mountainous Afghan province where US forces are concentrated and the hunt for al-Qaida militants is at its most intense.

...

[varun]

1. Buharraf is playing with fire...

...they will not be able to quell a movement by this act. This will only ignite the fires...

[BurtWorm]

7. According to the NYTimes story on the attack:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/30/world/asia/30cnd-stan.html?hp&ex=1162270800&en=0b8c1498e8729171&ei=5094&partner=homepage


Pakistani officials dismissed any suggestions that the United States was behind the attack. Tasnim Aslam, a spokesman for Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said at a news conference that the attack was not carried out under foreign pressure.

But opposition Islamist parties were quick to denounce the attack and blamed the United States. Qazi Hussain Ahmed, the leader of Jamaat-e-Islami, alleged that innocent children were killed and that the Pakistan Army was covering up for the alleged Americans strike.

“This area is not an area where there can be any training camp,” Mr. Ahmed said at a news briefing in Islamabad. “This is actually tantamount to the declaration of war on Pakistan,” he said.

[Canuckistanian]

2. So much for the "ceasefire"

The blowback for this will do nobody in the region any good.

[HereSince1628]

3. Maybe Rove's got OBL thawing out and they need an "event"

so they can claim the kill is recent?

[BurtWorm]

4. It does cross the mind to wonder if this hints at an attempted October

surprise, or a rehearsal for one, and the Bushists are watching with interest.

[HereSince1628]

10. And it seems maybe this ain't so far from the truth...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2586999

[PsychoDad]

5. We don't even know if these 80 were "radicals".

Only that they were slaughtered by a military dictatorship.

A Madrasa is a school, often the only place in the fronter areas of places like Pakistan for children.

Most were the dead are likely children.

Are children radicals?

peace.

[BurtWorm]

6. Even if they were "radicals"

what were they doing that provoked their being wiped out by their government with no apparent warning? Is Mushareff trying to send a signal? Is he going to explain why they struck this madrassa on this date? I don't get it.

[Igel]

8. Deobandi madaris are the core source of Taliban fighters.

The clerics running some of them are the Taliban sargeants for basic training and political indoctrination.

Liaqatulla didn't listen to the warnings he was given; he insisted on breaking the agreement that the tribal leaders agreed to, calling truce breaking a virtue since the opposition is a traitor to the Islamist cause. His Allah demands human blood sacrifice, his Islam compels obedience. May his blood, and the blood of his charges, be upon his head.

The Guardian is sometimes blinded by its need to not offend those it considers oppressed.

[BurtWorm]

9. I don't see how wiping out 80 lives to punish one guy is smart.

It seems downright stupid to me. :shrug:

PS: Not to mention inhuman. It's the Bushist disease of thinking of some people the way others think of insects.

[malaise]

11. Bushco now claiming to have killed

Al Qaeda leaders. Ah well they haven't found dead Osama yet.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

12. So we're blowing up schools now.

That'll learn em.