Pakistanis chant ’Death to America’ as protests erupt in wake of deadly attack

PESHAWAR, Pakistan - Chanting “Death to America,” angry anti-US Islamic groups began nationwide protests Sunday against a purported CIA airstrike that Pakistan says killed innocent civilians instead of the apparent target - top Al Qaeda lieutenant Ayman al-Zawahri.

President Gen. Pervez Musharraf meanwhile, warned his countrymen not to harbor militants, saying it would only increase violence within Pakistan’s borders.

“If we kept sheltering foreign terrorists here ... our future will not be good,” Musharraf said in speech broadcast Sunday by state-run Pakistan Television. “Remember what I say.”

Musharraf, who spoke Saturday to a gathering in the northwestern town of Sawabi, did not directly mention Friday’s attack that killed at least 17 people, including women and children, in a village of Damadola, just a few kilometers (miles) from the Afghanistan border.

But his government has protested to the US Embassy amid growing frustration over a recent series of suspected US attacks along the frontier, apparently aimed at Islamic militants.

On Sunday, more than 600 people braved rain and cold to rally against the airstrike in the town of Samarbagh, about 50 kilometers (31 miles) east of Damadola.

Protesters chanted “Death to America,” “Death to Bush” and “A friend of America is a traitor,” while also denouncing Musharraf for cooperating with the United States.

A rally speaker said Washington was targeting Pakistan because of its nuclear weapons.

“Pakistan is a nuclear power, and America has tightened the siege against it,” said Aizaz-ul Mulk Afkari, a leader from Hezb-ul Mujahedeen militant group.

A coalition of anti-US Islamic groups planned more protests elsewhere later Sunday. A day earlier, about 8,000 tribesmen staged a rally in the town of Inayat Qala, and a mob set fire to the office of a US-backed aid agency in a nearby village.

Survivors in Damadola denied militants were in their hamlet, but some news reports quoted unidentified Pakistani officials as saying up to 11 extremists were believed among the dead.

A Pakistani intelligence officer told The Associated Press some bodies were taken away for DNA tests. He did not say who would conduct the tests.

However, a law enforcement official in Washington said the FBI expected to conduct DNA tests to determine victims’ identities, although Pakistan hadn’t yet formally requested them.

In Washington, counterterrorism officials declined to comment on US media reports that CIA-operated drone aircraft fired missiles Friday at a residential compound in Damadola trying to hit al-Zawahri, Osama bin Laden’s top lieutenant.

A large number of Al Qaeda and Taleban combatants, including al-Zawahri and bin Laden are believed to have sought refuge along the rugged, porous and ill-defined border.

Two senior Pakistani security officials confirmed to AP that al-Zawahri was the intended victim and said Pakistan’s assessment was that the CIA acted on incorrect information.

A news report on Sunday said the mission was launched on intelligence that al-Zawahri had been invited to dinner that night in one of three houses leveled by the attack. Also invited were two clerics, Maulvi Faqir Mohammad and Maulvi Liaqat, both wanted for harboring militants, Pakistan’s Dawn newspaper reported, citing unidentified senior officials.

A senior army official said Sunday that there were reports of “foreigners” in the area, but that there was no information al-Zawahri was among them.

News reports that al-Zawahri had been invited to dinner are “rumor,” he said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic.

The Foreign Ministry issued a statement saying it protested to US Ambassador Ryan Crocker over the “loss of innocent civilian lives.”

Many in this nation of 150 million people object to Musharraf’s alliance with Washington in the war on international terror groups, seeing it as a veiled campaign against Muslims.

Supporters of the opposition coalition planned to hold protests Sunday across Pakistan to condemn the bombing and demand Musharraf’s resignation.

The president’s policies “are having dangerous results for the country’s integrity,” said Liaqat Baluch, a lawmaker from the alliance.

“We demand that Pervez Musharraf resign and American troops vacate all parts of Pakistan and go out of Afghanistan and Iraq,” said Baluch, whose Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal, or the United Action Forum alliance, made stunning gains in parliamentary elections in 2002.

The party runs on a platform of support for the Taleban and opposition to the United States.

Pakistan’s government insists it does not allow the 20,000 US soldiers in Afghanistan to cross the border in the hunt for Taleban fighters or Al Qaeda members believed to be hiding in the remote mountains of the frontier region.

But the attack in Damadola was the latest in a string of incidents on Pakistan’s side of the border in recent weeks that many people suspect were US assaults that violated this Islamic country’s sovereignty.