Protest call in Pakistan after deadly school raid

PAKISTAN: Radical Islamic leaders in Pakistan called for mass protests Tuesday after around 80 people died in an airstrike on a suspected Al-Qaeda-linked training camp at a religious school.

Thousands of angry tribesmen were expected to rally in the troubled zone of Bajaur, where Monday's pre-dawn raid by helicopter gunships took place, amid claims that most or all of the dead were civilians.

Britain's Prince Charles and his wife Camilla cancelled a trip to Peshawar in North West Frontier Province on government advice Tuesday as fears grew of similar unrest in the conservative city.

"The situation is very tense, people are very emotional over the killings," Islamic fundamentalist parliamentarian Haroon Rashid told AFP in Khar, the main town in Bajaur agency along the border with Afghanistan.

Shops and public transport closed down on Monday in the town and sporadic protests erupted, officials said.

"On Tuesday morning there will be a huge but peaceful protest here to be attended by thousands of people," Rashid said.

He said he had resigned in protest at the "barbaric" raid, adding: "Those who were martyred were innocent children aged 10 to 15 years. They were not terrorists and had come to madrassa to learn Islamic teachings."

Pakistan's biggest coalition of religious parties, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (United Action Front), to which Rashid belongs, has also called a protest on Tuesday in Karachi, the country's largest city.

Pakistan's military said the raid killed around 80 militants, including some foreigners and a local Taliban commander, Maulvi Liaqat, who ran the Islamic school, also known as a madrassa.

Around four missiles were fired at the concrete-walled compound, reducing much of it to rubble. Dozens of mangled bodies covered in sheets were laid out on makeshift beds afterwards for funeral prayers.

Liaqat was an associate of Al-Qaeda's deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, who in January escaped a similar air strike about two kilometres (one mile) away from the site of Monday's attack, security sources said.

The madrassa was being used as a training centre to send hardcore Islamic fighters across the border into Afghanistan to attack NATO soldiers, they added.

Local leaders, however, insisted that the dead were civilians and that most of them were teenage students at the madrassa, many of whom were "reduced to bits and pieces" as they slept or prayed.

"We are launching a peaceful protest against the airstrike," prominent local politician Siraj-ul-Haq said in Peshawar after resigning as provincial deputy chief minister. "America wants Pakistani people and the military to fight with each other, but we will not let it happen. We will remain peaceful in our protest."

"The Americans did it in Damadola and killed 13 innocent women and children, but this time they have killed 80 innocent children," legislator Rashid said, referring to January's raid on nearby Damadola village which targeted Zawahiri.

Khar, Tuesday, AFP