Attacks dash hopes of peace in Pakistan

PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- Two months ago, Pakistan's president, General Pervez Musharraf, triumphantly announced a peace pact with Islamic extremists in the North Waziristan tribal district near the Afghan border, saying he hoped it would become a model for curbing domestic Islamic militancy and cross-border insurgent attacks in Afghanistan.

Today, that model lies in shreds. Northwestern Pakistan's fragile political peace has been shattered by two devastating attacks: a government missile strike that killed 82 people at an Islamic school in the Bajaur tribal district on Oct. 30, and a retaliatory suicide bombing Wednesday that killed 42 army recruits at a training camp in the Malakand tribal district.

The missile strike was based on US intelligence reports that the school was being used as a training site for Islamic insurgents, who have found sanctuary across the semi-autonomous tribal areas where Osama bin Laden and other Al Qaeda figures may also be hiding. Now, officials are predicting a new wave of violence, as anti-government anger spreads and religious extremists call for holy war against the Pakistani military and Western forces fighting in Afghanistan.

"This is a disaster. We all recognize the gravity of the situation," said a senior military official in this northwestern provincial capital, speaking on condition of anonymity. "It's a nightmare to have an army being attacked on its own soil and by its own people." After the two incidents, he added, "the doors to peaceful negotiated settlements are closed. I am afraid we are on a war course in the tribal areas."

Public condemnation of the missile attack has been almost universal in Pakistan. Many people say they believe it was actually carried out by a US Predator drone, which witnesses described as circling overhead before Pakistani helicopter gunships arrived. US and Pakistani officials have denied that.

Local leaders have also said that the school, run by a cleric from a banned extremist group, was used only for religious studies and that many young students were killed in the strike. No physical evidence of a training camp has been publicly produced, journalists have been barred from the site, and most of the victims' bodies were too disfigured to identify.

"This was a crime against humanity. Everyone hates America now, and they hate Musharraf for giving in to American pressure," said Bashir Ahmed, 25, a produce trader in a Peshawar market. "America is the enemy of all Muslims, but they will never defeat us, because we are all becoming Al Qaeda now, even me."

Pakistani military and intelligence officials said they had little choice but to bomb the site after they received overwhelming proof from US intelligence sources that it was being used as a training center for insurgents. A refusal to act, the Pakistanis said, would have badly damaged their relations with the United States, which counts Pakistan as a key ally in the war against Al Qaeda and fundamentalist Islamic terrorism.

"They loaded us with evidence. The strike was absolutely inevitable," said a senior intelligence official, also speaking on condition of anonymity. Another official called the attack a "major test" of military and intelligence cooperation between the United States and Pakistan. "We thought about other options, but the Americans weren't ready to take any chances," he said. "We were caught between the devil and the deep sea."

Public outrage has also flared over Wednesday's suicide bombing, in which a man wrapped in a cloak strolled among army recruits exercising on a field and detonated powerful explosives, killing more Pakistani troops than any previous terrorist attack. But many Pakistanis view that bombing as a predictable response to an ill-conceived military action taken under US pressure.

Ansar Abbasi, Islamabad bureau chief for the News International newspaper, called the Bajaur attack "outrageous" and argued in a column that while it might have raised Musharraf's tough-guy image in the West, it served no national interest and could only exacerbate conflict between the army and the civilian populace. "Have we not fallen into a U S trap?" he asked.

One Peshawar political leader said the Bajaur site was definitely a terrorist base but that it was not "politically correct to say so" in the region. Bajaur elders had reached a peace accord similar to the Waziristan pact, he said, but the missile strike occurred just hours before they were to sign it. "People find this mind-boggling and impossible to understand," he said.

The Musharraf government has long been caught between conflicting domestic and international pressures. Western powers have demanded that it crack down on religious extremists and hunt down Al Qaeda fugitives, widely reported to be hiding in the semi-autonomous tribal belt. But Islamic groups are politically dominant in Pakistan's northwest, and many tribal fighters have resisted military efforts to dislodge Islamic militants from their midst.

Musharraf's recent attempt at compromise, a series of negotiated settlements with armed Islamic groups and tribal leaders, has been controversial. Critics charge that pacts in North and South Waziristan left both areas under the control of militants who continue to export violence to Afghanistan. They say the deals were aimed only at extricating army troops from the tribal areas, where they had sustained heavy casualties during months of fighting.

The dominant political group in the northwest, the Jamaat-e- Islami religious party, responded to the Bajaur attack by staging nationwide protests. While Jamaat officially opposes terrorism and has played a responsible leadership role in provincial government for the past several years, it issued calls for jihad after the missile strike, and several key leaders resigned from their government posts or seats in parliament.

In interviews , several Jamaat leaders echoed the ambivalence, saying they were horrified by suicide bombings but furious at Western military interference and opposed to the moderate version of Islam that Musharraf promotes.