Islamic groups yesterday vowed to step up anti-US protests in Pakistan over an alleged CIA airstrike on a border village, as intelligence officials said al-Qaeda's No. 2 leader was supposed to be in the village for an Islamic holiday when it was struck.
Ayman al-Zawahri, Osamba bin Laden's top lieutenant, was invited to an Islamic dinner in the village near Pakistan's border with Afghanistan but did not show up -- which could explain why Friday's pre-dawn attack missed its apparent target, two Pakistani officials said.
Al-Zawahri sent some aides to the dinner instead, and investigators were trying to determine whether they had been in any of the three houses that were destroyed in the missile strike that killed at least 17 people, one of the officials said on Sunday.
Nationwide protests
The Islamic groups held nationwide protests on Sunday, as anger mounted over the attack that Pakistan said killed innocent civilians while al-Zawahri was not even there. The anti-US religious coalition that organized the rallies promised more of them.
"There will be more ... bigger protests," alliance spokesman Shahid Shamsi said yesterday.
across the coutnry
Some 10,000 people rallied on Sunday in Karachi, Pakistan's biggest city, chanting "Death to America" and "Stop bombing against innocent people."
Hundreds massed in the capital, Islamabad, and in Lahore, Multan and Peshawar burning US flags and demanding the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan.
Protesters believe the airstrike was ordered by the CIA and launched by US forces who are pursuing Taliban and al-Qaeda militants in neighboring Afghanistan, and Shamsi said the war on terror should not extend across borders without permission.
"Pakistani civilians, including children, were killed," Shamsi said.
"Principles cannot be broken in the name of [fighting] terrorism," he added.
The White House declined to comment on Sunday, and officials at several US agencies have not provided details about the attack. But Republican Senator John McCain and other US lawmakers defended it on Sunday.
"We apologize, but I can't tell you that we wouldn't do the same thing again" in going after Ayman al-Zawahri, McCain said.
"We have to do what we think is necessary to take out al-Qaeda, particularly the top operatives. This guy has been more visible than Osama bin Laden lately," McCain told CBS.
Official condemnation
Pakistani officials have strongly condemned the strike on the ethnic Pashtun hamlet of Damadola, about 7km from the border with Afghanistan.
A senior army official said on Sunday that "foreigners" were reported in the area around Damadola, which is 6km from the Afghanistan border, but he said there was no information al-Zawahri was among them.
Many in this nation of 150 million people oppose the government's participation in the US-led war against international terrorist groups, and there is increasing frustration over a recent series of suspected US attacks along the frontier aimed at militants.
A large number of al-Qaeda and Taliban combatants, including al-Zawahri and bin Laden, are believed to have taken refuge in the rugged mountains along the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
But Pakistani officials insist they do not allow the 20,000 US soldiers in Afghanistan to cross the border in the hunt for Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters.
Survivors in Damadola denied militants were there, but some news reports quoted unidentified Pakistani officials as saying up to 11 extremists were believed among the dead.
Offering Sinovac Biotech COVID-19 vaccines to the public in Singapore for the first time since Friday, several private clinics reported overwhelming demand for the Chinese-made shot, despite already available rival vaccines having far higher efficacy. Singapore has vaccinated almost half its 5.7 million population with at least one dose of the vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. Both have shown efficacy rates of well over 90 percent against symptomatic disease in clinical trials, compared with Sinovac’s 51 percent. Earlier this week, officials in Indonesia said that more than 350 medical workers have caught COVID-19, despite being vaccinated with Sinovac and dozens have been
‘WITHIN SAFE LIMITS’: Hong Kong is to ask authorities in Guangdong for updates regarding the Taishan Nuclear Power Plant and inform the public of developments The Hong Kong government is closely watching a nearby Chinese nuclear power plant following a news report that it might be leaking, Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam (林鄭月娥) said yesterday. The plant’s operators have released few details, but nuclear experts have said that based on their brief public statement, the facility might be suffering a leak of gas from fuel rods inside a reactor. Government data showed that radiation levels in Hong Kong were normal on Monday night, Lam said. Data from the Hong Kong Observatory showed radiation levels were still normal yesterday. A French company that helps manage the Taishan Nuclear
When COVID-19 arrived in India, few places looked as vulnerable as Mumbai. However, a year on, South Asia’s most crowded city has surprised many by tackling a vicious second wave of the virus with considerable success. Gaurav Awasthi even traveled hundreds of kilometers from his home on the outskirts of Delhi to get his ailing wife a hospital bed there, paying an ambulance more than US$1,000 to drive 24 hours straight. “I cannot ever repay my debt to this city,” the 29-year-old said, recounting an ordeal that saw him spend five days fruitlessly searching for a bed across several cities, including Delhi.
Until recently, the location of executed Japanese prime minister Hideki Tojo’s remains was one of World War II’s biggest mysteries in the nation he once led. Now, a Japanese university professor has revealed declassified US military documents that appear to hold the answer. The documents show the cremated ashes of Tojo, one of the masterminds of the Pearl Harbor attack, were scattered from a US Army aircraft over the Pacific Ocean about 50km east of Yokohama, Japan’s second-largest city. It was a tension-filled, highly secretive mission, with US officials taking extreme steps to keep Tojo’s remains, and those of six others executed
RSS