| Daily Times - Site Edition | Thursday, January 26, 2006 |
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Dozens protest Bajaur strike in Peshawar
PESHAWAR: Dozens of Islamic students protested the Bajaur air strike in Peshawar on Wednesday.
Repeating the now-familiar chant of “Death to America”, the protesters demanded that Islamabad expel US Ambassador to Pakistan Ryan Crocker for the January 13 assault on Damadola village, which left 13 civilians and at least four Al Qaeda operatives dead, intelligence officials had said. About 50 supporters of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) demonstrated in front of the Peshawar Press Club. “This (Bajaur strike) is international terrorism,” said Mohammed Ghayas, a leader of Wednesday’s demonstration. “It is a conspiracy against the Islamic world.”
The air strike missed its apparent target, Al Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahri, but one of the terror network’s top bomb-makers may have been killed in the attack when as many as a dozen operatives gathered for dinner, officials said.
President Pervez Musharraf said during a visit to Norway on Tuesday that there were indications that some Al Qaeda suspects were killed in the bombing, but he was not “100 percent sure of that”. Prime minister Shaukat Aziz told CNN recently that there was not a “shred” of evidence to suggest an Al Qaeda gathering on January 13. ap