Pakistan took out a religious school in Chinagai, on the border with Afghanistan on Monday, hitting it with a missile that killed an estimated 80 people. The institution is reportedly linked both to the Taliban and al Qaeda.

Some excerpts from the BBC story:

One of militant leaders known to have died in the attack is Maulana Liaqat, the head of the seminary that was targeted by the missiles.

We heard two blasts at about 4:50 am, whereas the Pakistani helicopters appeared a good 10 minutes later Bajaur attack witness

Maulana Liaqat was also a leader of the pro-Taleban movement, Tanzim Nifaz Shariat Mohammadi (TNSM) that spearheaded a violent Islamic movement in Bajaur and the neighbouring Malakand areas in 1994.

The TNSM also led some 5,000 men from the Pakistani areas of Dir, Swat and Bajaur across the Mamond border into Afghanistan in October 2001 to fight US-led troops.

Another local cleric, Maulana Faqir Mohammad, currently heads the TNSM in Bajaur agency.

Both Faqir Mohammad and Maulana Liaqat were wanted by the government for harbouring Taleban militants and training fighters for the war in Afghanistan.

Early reports suggested that Faqir Mohammad had also been killed in Monday's attack.

But he later turned up at the funeral where he made a speech condemning the raid and vowing to continue support for "jihad against the Americans" in Afghanistan.

He told a reporter of al-Jazeera TV that the attack had been launched by forces "opposed to a North Waziristan-like rapprochement between the government and tribal people". ...

If the latest body count is confirmed, it would take the combined death toll of the two attacks to 93, a high figure for this remote corner of the Pakistani tribal belt.

Many in Pakistan oppose the US-led "war on terror"

But it is also a sign of the attention that the Mamond valley is receiving from the US and Pakistani authorities.

The valley, which constitutes an administrative sub-division of Bajaur agency, has housed training camps for both Afghan and Kashmiri militants in the past.

The local population hosted a large number of Arab mujahideen during 1980s and 1990s, and opened up to the influence of some extremist factions of the Islamic Brotherhood.

The area served as an important staging ground for Afghan and local mujahideen to organise and conduct raids as far afield as Kabul during the days of the Soviet occupation.

The area was targeted in air raids by Soviet jets and helicopter gunships which aimed for mujahideen camps but often hit civilian targets.

It still hosts a large Afghan refugee population sympathetic to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a mujahideen leader ideologically close to the Arab militants.

A one time protégé of Pakistan's ISI intelligence agency, Mr Hekmatyar is still reported to be operating in the area.

The US says militants based in Bajaur launch frequent attacks on American and Afghan troops in the adjoining Afghan province of Kunar.

The attack reportedly came on a day when the Pakistan government and local militants were to sign a peace deal that had been mediated by tribal elders.

The question is, why would the government risk another controversy at a time when it was close to signing an agreement with the militants?

Probably all part of the great balancing act in Pakistan between domestic and foreign pressures.

Aftermath

The Beeb reported a rally in the town of Khar drew 10,000 people to protest the attack. A survivor told AP that the school wasn't being used for militant activities:

In his first comments since the raid, Gen Musharraf said those killed were "militants doing military training".

"We were watching them for the last six or seven days - we knew exactly who they are, what they are doing," he told a conference in Islamabad.

"Anyone who says that these people were innocent [religious students] is telling lies," he said.

But Abu Bakar, one of three survivors from the raid, disputed the president's version.

"There was not militant training in the madrassa," he told the Associated Press (AP) news agency from his hospital bed.
 
"We had come here to learn Allah's religion," said the 22-year-old from Loi Sam, a town 15km (10 miles) from the destroyed school.

However, the story then talks about the "pro-Taleban mayor." Hmm ...