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Pakistan's official denial that al-Zawahiri was killed
Pakistani officials said that Al-Qaeda deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was likely not killed in a US air strike, as Islamabad protested to Washington the deaths of 18 villagers in the attack.The foreign ministry said it had summoned the US ambassador to receive a protest while Information Minister Sheikh Rashid condemned Friday's missile raid in a remote tribal area. Police also used teargas to disperse protesters after a mob chanting anti-American slogans burned down a US-funded aid agency office near the site of the attack, witnesses said. That would be the "peaceful demonstration" from earlier ... "Foreign Secretary Riaz Khan handed over a formal protest to the US ambassador at the foreign ministry this evening," foreign office spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam told AFP. It is the second protest lodged by Pakistan with its key "war on terror" ally the United States for alleged incursion into its tribal region bordering Afghanistan this month. Rashid told a news conference the government had "no information about Al-Zawahiri" following Friday's "highly condemnable" attack in Damadola, a village in the Bajur tribal agency. "Things are being investigated, and let the investigation first be completed," he added. Senior Pakistani government and intelligence officials said Zawahiri was thought not to have been in the area at the time of the air strike. "As far as our investigations are concerned reports about Zawahiri being killed in the attack are not true," one top official told AFP on condition of anonymity. "Our agencies have carried out initial ground checks and, combined with intelligence from the area, there is no indication about Zawahiri's presence in the area at the time of the incident or before." Villagers in Damadola said they heard aircraft or helicopters before three explosions rocked the village, and insisted that the only victims were local people. "We were asleep when the first missile hit another house. We came out but my three children were buried under debris in a second explosion," said Mohammed Khan, 35. His children all died. "The US cannot do this without Pakistan's support. We are leaving it to God to give us justice." In Khar, which is the main town in Bajur agency and close to Damadola village, an estimated 5,000 people gathered to protest the killings. Some demonstrators set fire to the offices of Associated Development Construction, a non-governmental organisation funded by the US Agency for International Development, an official at the aid group said. Police later fired tear gas shells to disperse the mob after the crowd headed towards a music and video cassette market, while security forces fired two shots in the air, the AFP reporter said. Pakistan's biggest Islamist party, Jamaat-e-Islami, called for a nationwide strike on Sunday to protest against the deaths. US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) sources said earlier they had unconfirmed indications that a key target, possibly Osama bin Laden's Egyptian number two and chief ideologue, died in a raid by a US Predator drone in Pakistan. Citing US defense sources, NBC television said the strike had targeted Zawahiri, 55. The US Defense Department denied that the US military had carried out any attacks in the area. "There is no reason to believe the US military is conducting operations there," said Lieutenant Colonel Todd Vician. Posted by: Dan Darling 2006-01-14 |
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