Eighty killed at an al-Qaeda training school in Pakistan. Seems the target of the attack was Ayman al Zawahiri.ABC is claiming that Pakistan intelligence sources say that it was a US predator drone that leveled the madrassa, earlier reports say it was a Pakistan helicopter. Doesn't matter, either way 80 militants are dead and good riddance.
The raid was launched after US military received tips and examined information from Predator, that Zawahiri was staying at the madrassa.
Faqir Mohammed's deputy, Maulana Liaquat Ali Hussain was killed in the attack. According to NBC, Mohammed has been accused of providing shelter to militants and even invited bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, to the madrassa.
In his public speeches Mohammed has said it is our moral and religious obligation to support muhajadeen, to provide protection for muhajadeen, and shelter for others who have left their homes to perform jihad.
Mohammed was very emotional after the attack and swore jihad against what he called occupation forces.
Poor baby is upset.
According to the Fourth Rail, “The bodies of 20 people wrapped in sheets were laid out at funeral prayers nearby after the attack.” News reports are beginning to claim children were killed in the attack, which is possible as the Taliban has been know to place civilians in military sites to create such a situation. Madrassa are also used to indoctrinate youths into the Taliban's radical ideology. An American intelligence source tells us that this was but one of "22 known camps in the Federally Administered Tribal Agencies."
Of course Islamic leaders and al-Qaeda linked militants are calling for demonstrations to protest the attack according to Wapo.
The raid was launched after the madrassa's leaders, headed by cleric Liaquat Hussain, rejected government warnings to stop using the school as a training camp for terrorists, said army spokesman Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan.
"These militants were involved in actions inside Pakistan and probably in Afghanistan," Sultan told The Associated Press.
Militant groups in Bajur are believed to ferry fighters, weapons and supplies to Afghanistan to target U.S. forces there and Pakistani soldiers on this side of the ethnic-Pashtun majority tribal belt.
AP says that Sultan denied reports that al-Zawahri was in the area at the time of the attack. "It is all wrong, speculative and we launched this operation on our own to target a training facility," he said. A Bajur-area intelligence official said word was spreading among residents that al-Zawahri may have been expected at the madrassa, but he said the reports were wrong.
Hussain, the cleric believed to have been a deputy of al-Zawahri, was among those killed, the intelligence official and residents said.
Other news from Afghanistan, in Kabul, 55 more insurgents were killed and 20 more militants injured in a firefight in Daychopan district of Zabul province.
The battle came on the heels of another major fight between militants and NATO and Afghan troops Saturday in neighboring Uruzgan province in which 70 insurgents were killed after they attacked a military base north of Tarin Kowt.
We are getting closer... some reports, although disputed say that Zawahiri is boxed in a 40 mile area and they expect his capture within months. We shall see.
Others posting on Afghanistan: Hot Air, Townhall Blog from Mary Katharine Ham, Flopping Aces, A blog for all, Confederate Yankee, Stop the ACLU.