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| India-Pakistan |
| No word on Ayman's death or survival |
| 2006-01-16 |
| Rallies around the country continued fitfully on Sunday to protest the United States airstrike on a Pakistani village that was intended to kill Ayman al-Zawahiri, the No. 2 leader of Al Qaeda, but instead killed at least 18 civilians, even as American counterterrorism officials said they were not ready to rule out the prospect that Mr. Zawahiri might have been killed in the Friday strike. Officials in Pakistan, who have examined bodies found at the scene, have said they were confident that Mr. Zawahiri was not killed in the attack. But the American officials have said they had not seen solid indications of his death or his survival. At a minimum, the officials said they believed that other senior Qaeda officials had died in the attack. In the port city of Karachi, some 5,000 demonstrators gathered for a political rally, but in Peshawar, Islamabad, Lahore and Multan, the crowds were smaller, of only a few hundred people. Demonstrators chanted "Death to America" and "Stop bombing innocent people," and burned American flags, but they dispersed without violence. Demonstrators protested for a second day in the tribal border region of Bajaur, where the airstrike occurred. Protesters also denounced the government of the military ruler, President Pervez Musharraf, accusing him of being an American puppet and of allowing the attack. "Our rulers are traitors," and "Our rulers are cowards and surrogates of America," protesters chanted in the capital, Islamabad, Agence France-Presse reported. But a call by a coalition of religious parties for a general strike was largely ignored in Peshawar. The Musharraf government has condemned the attack on civilians and made a formal protest to the United States ambassador in Pakistan, but Mr. Musharraf said Saturday that there were indications that foreigners had been present in the village of Damadola, the target of the strike, and he warned Pakistanis in nationally televised speech not to harbor foreign militants. The raid is believed to have been carried out by the C.I.A., using missiles fired by a remotely piloted Predator aircraft, on the basis of information gathered in an aggressive effort to track Mr. Zawahiri. An American counterterrorism official declined to discuss details of the attack, but said: "My understanding is that it was based on pretty darned good information. A decision to do something like this is not made lightly." The C.I.A. and the White House have declined to comment on the raid, the third airstrike in recent weeks inside Pakistani territory by American aircraft. The American counterterrorism officials who agreed to speak about it were granted anonymity because they had not been authorized to speak publicly. They offered a defense of the attack, saying they did not believe that innocent bystanders in Pakistan had been killed. One counterterrorism official said that even if Mr. Zawahiri was not killed in the attacks, "Some very senior Al Qaeda types might have been." The official declined to identify other Qaeda members thought to have been at the scene. In the past, failed attacks on senior Qaeda officials have been followed by triumphant statements from the group calling attention to the failure, while news about the death of Qaeda members tends to circulate in channels monitored by American intelligence. "If Zawahiri was indeed killed, it would be very hard for them to keep that under wraps for a long period of time," one official said. For more than a year, Mr. Zawahiri has served as the principal public face of Al Qaeda, during a period in which Osama bin Laden, the leader of Al Qaeda, has not been seen or heard from. The last audiotapes from Mr. bin Laden were made public in December 2004; in the first three years after the 2001 attacks, he was seen and heard from more often. American intelligence agencies believe that Mr. bin Laden is still alive, but has adopted a low profile to avoid giving away clues that might allow the C.I.A. to identify his location. In Pakistan, it has become standard for political parties to call for protest rallies after incidents of perceived American interference here, and politicians both in the government and in the opposition took the chance to criticize the Musharraf government and its policy of supporting the United States campaign against terrorism. Yet most commentators did not expect lasting trouble for Mr. Musharraf. The pro-Taliban religious alliance, Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, known as M.M.A., which has wide support in the regions bordering Afghanistan, organized some of the demonstrations and called for an end to the alliance with the United States. Its leader, Ghafoor Haidri, called on the government in a speech in Karachi to "stop using Pakistani soldiers to kill Pakistanis in tribal areas." Another member called for American forces to leave Pakistan and Afghanistan. Fewer than 100 American soldiers are present in Pakistan, assisting with the earthquake relief in Kashmir, and some 18,000 United States troops are in Afghanistan, largely fighting an insurgency in the south and east of the country, in areas bordering Pakistan. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #6 Mebbe the Pakistanis will finally catch on that inviting over al Qaeda's top brass is big bad mojo. Eighteen dead is nothing compared to what Ayman is planning. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2006-01-16 17:48 |
| #5 Since when do thousands of Pakistanis rally to protest the deaths of poor innocent villagers, some of whom were women and children? If Zawahiri was late for dinner, who or what tipped him off? Nine missiles aren't usually just for target practice, either, when they use every incident to incite the jihadis further. I heard on FOX, I believe, that Zawahiri's wife is from that region of Pakistan and that he had just recently returned to the area from Iran....maybe dropped off the wife for safe keeping while he skipped the region by cab. What about the bodies spirited away in the dark and who are all those mourners in the streets grieving for? Maybe they made a widower out of Ayman or at least took out sympathizers. This also coincides with the recent rumor at the hadj that Binny died in December in Iran from kidney failure, or even in the earthquake, so maybe Zawahiri needed to go East to oversee some business. I'm actually pretty optimistic over all these fitful protests as the word hits the streets. Even Feinstein said "collateral damage" sometimes cannot be avoided. |
| Posted by: Danielle 2006-01-16 12:05 |
| #4 Ayman's fate is uncertain. |
| Posted by: 6 2006-01-16 10:35 |
| #3 |
| Posted by: doc 2006-01-16 08:17 |
| #2 But still waiting for the tape or video just feeling alot more confident thiers not goining to be one. |
| Posted by: C-Low 2006-01-16 00:52 |
| #1 "At a minimum, the officials said they believed that other senior Qaeda officials had died in the attack" Thats the jewel I was looking for American prespective ahh yeah that face recognition from a couple of thousand feet in infared not quite there yet but defenatley good enough to tell the difference between some sheep herders and AQ ranking man with his escort. The Paks when they found no foriegn bodies were just guessing from nothing. |
| Posted by: C-Low 2006-01-16 00:50 |