Muhammad Idrees Ahmad

Although the Pakistani military has never triumphed in any of the wars it has participated in, comparisons with the Israeli military abound. While battlefield performance may not be its forte, like the IDF, it is at its best confronting the weak and vulnerable. However, there are also differences: whereas IDF’s victims have overwhelmingly been ”others” (Palestinians, Lebanese, Jordanians, Syrians, Egyptians, Americans), the Pakistani military has the sordid distinction of killing more of its own (in East Pakistan, Baluchistan, Waziristan) than its enemies. 

Only last year the Pakistani dictator had gone so far as to declare Ariel Sharon “a bold man, a great soldier, a courageous leader”. Today this admirer of the Butcher of Sabra & Chatilla has chosen to pay a sanguine tribute by unleashing his pigs on the sleeping orphans and the indigent of Bajaur. The Guardian reports:

Helicopters fired missiles into a madrasa, or religious school, in Bajaur tribal region just before dawn, flattening the building and widely scattering debris and body parts. ..Wailing men tugged corpses, including that of a seven-year-old boy, from the rubble in Chingai village. Thousands of mourners attended mass burials…

Siraj ul-Haq, a minister in the provincial government, resigned in protest. “This is against Islam and the traditions of the area,” he said. “This was an unprovoked attack on a madrasa. They were innocent people.”

Times adds:

Pakistan’s chief military spokesman conceded today that the military used intelligence used by the US-led coalition in Afghanistan but later withdrew the remark made to an international news agency and insisted that the pre-dawn attack on the madrassa near Chingai village was an entirely Pakistani operation.

Pakistani officials also denied a report from ABC News that the madrassa was hit by a missile fired by a US Predator drone, prompted by information that Ayman al-Zawahiri, the al-Qaeda No 2, was in the building at the time.