Thousands of gun-wielding Pakistani tribesmen chanting "Death to Bush" protested yesterday against a deadly air raid on an al-Qaeda-linked religious school in which 80 people were killed.
The show of anger came ahead of rallies called by radical Islamic leaders, triggering security fears that forced Britain's Prince Charles to cancel a key part of his visit to Pakistan.
Around 15,000 bearded men wearing turbans burned effigies of US President George W. Bush and shouted "Death to Musharraf" in the troubled Bajaur tribal region, which borders Afghanistan, a correspondent said.
The military said Monday's pre-dawn helicopter attack, the deadliest in Pakistan's history, targeted a hardline Islamic school or madrassa that doubled as an al-Qaeda-linked camp.
President Pervez Musharraf, a key ally in Bush's "war on terror," told a seminar in Islamabad that the dead were all insurgents.
"They were all militants using weapons, doing military training within the compound. We were watching them for the last six or seven days -- we knew exactly who they are, what they are doing," he said.
But radical Islamic clerics told the mass rally at Khar, the main town in rugged Bajaur, that all those who died were young students, and vowed revenge.
"We are ready for suicide attacks against the enemy," said one of the clerics, Inayatul Rehman.
The meeting place was ringed by masked men wielding Kalashnikovs and ammunition belts. No government security forces could be seen in the area, and most of the protesters wore black armbands.
Leaders in this pocket of support for al-Qaeda and the Taliban accused US forces of either ordering the strike on the madrasah or of actually carrying out the raid using Predator drones.
Officials say Bajaur is a hotspot for militants fighting NATO forces in Afghanistan's Kunar Province. Al-Qaeda's deputy leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, was targeted in a failed CIA missile strike here in January.
Among those killed in Monday's raid was Maulvi Liaqat, a local Taliban commander who ran the madrasah and who is known to be a close associate of Zawahiri, security officials said.
Locals were still digging through the rubble of the concrete-walled compound yesterday to check for any more human remains. The rest of the victims were buried at a mass funeral on Monday.
Authorities closed all routes to the mountain-fringed town and barred entry to Qazi Hussain Ahmed, the chief of Pakistan's biggest coalition of religious parties, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA -- United Action Front).
Another 5,000 tribesmen rallied in Landi Kotal, the main town of the nearby Khyber tribal area, blaming Musharraf for the "bloodshed of innocent tribesmen," witnesses said.
Smaller protests took place in several cities including nearby Peshawar, obliging Charles and his wife, Camilla, to scrap a planned visit there.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
US President Donald Trump yesterday announced sweeping "reciprocal tariffs" on US trading partners, including a 32 percent tax on goods from Taiwan that is set to take effect on Wednesday. At a Rose Garden event, Trump declared a 10 percent baseline tax on imports from all countries, with the White House saying it would take effect on Saturday. Countries with larger trade surpluses with the US would face higher duties beginning on Wednesday, including Taiwan (32 percent), China (34 percent), Japan (24 percent), South Korea (25 percent), Vietnam (46 percent) and Thailand (36 percent). Canada and Mexico, the two largest US trading
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary