The Bajaur madrasa was run by the TNSM. Eighty students were killed in the air raid. The tribals alleged that the madrasa was bombed by a US plane from Afghanistan. This was refuted by the Pakistan Army, which claimed that it had carried out the attack since it had information that the madrasa was training people for terrorist operations.(October, 31, Chennai, Sri Lanka Guardian) On the first anniversary of the air strike on a madrasa of the Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM) in the Bajaur Agency, which fell on October 30,2007, an unidentified suicide bomber in his early 20s blew himself up near a police security barrier in a high security area of Rawalpindi. Apart from the suicide terrorist himself, three police officers and four passers-by were killed. The police security barrier controls access to an area where the Army House, which is the official residence of Gen.Pervez Musharraf as the Chief of the Army Staff (COAS), and the official house of Gen.Tariq Majeed, the newly-appointed Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, are located.
Till December 2003, Musharraf preferred living in the Army House at Rawalpindi. After the two unsuccessful attempts to assassinate him in December,2003, he is reported to be living in the President's House in Islamabad. However, he comes often to the office of the COAS in the General Headquarters (GHQ) in Rawalpindi to attend to his work as the COAS. He was reportedly in his office in the GHQ at the time of the explosion.
According to the "Dawn" of Karachi (October 31), among the injured were three policemen and eight others belonging to the security staff of the President.Both Gen.Musharraf and Gen.Tariq Majeed figure on top of the hit list of Al Qaeda and other jihadi terrorist organisations. Tariq Majeed supervised the commando raid into the Lal Masjid in Islamabad between July 10 to 13,2007, in which about 300 tribal girls studying in a girls' madrasa of the masjid were allegedly killed.
No organisation has so far claimed responsibility for the attack, but the needle of suspicion points to the TNSM as well as the survivors of the Lal Masjid raid, who have taken a vow to avenge the death of the young girls. This is the fourth attack directed at military targets since then. Two of the previous suicide attacks directed at militatry personnel were in Rawalpindi and one was directed at the officers of the Special Services Group(SSG), the elite US-trained commando group which carried out the Lal Masjid raid allegedly killing 300 tribal girls, who resisted the raid.Twelve SSG officers were killed when a suicide bomber, suspected to be an SSG officer, blew himself up in their headquarters mess at Tarbella at the time of dinner.There have been a number of other suicide strikes directed at Police and other targets since the Lal Masjid raid, but none of them has been detected so far.
There has been violent fighting between members of the TNSM and the para-military forces in the Swat Valley of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) since October 25,2007, resulting in the death of 30 members of the TNSM and 20 para-military personnel. After a temporary cease-fire on October 29, 2007, to enable the two sides to collect their dead and injured, the fighting has resumed. Many of the tribal girls, who preished in the Lal Masjid raid, were children of tribals from the Swat Valley.
The Bajaur madrasa was run by the TNSM. Eighty students were killed in the air raid. The tribals alleged that the madrasa was bombed by a US plane from Afghanistan. This was refuted by the Pakistan Army, which claimed that it had carried out the attack since it had information that the madrasa was training people for terrorist operations. On November 8,2006, 45 Pakistani army recruits undergoing training at a Punjab Regimental Centre training school at Dargai, 100 kms north of Peshawar in the NWFP, were killed and many others injured early in the morning when a suspected suicide bomber ran towards them and blew himself up. Pakistani investigators believed that the suicide attack was in reprisal for the air attack on the madrasa .
Mrs.Benazir Bhutto is reported to be planning to address a public meeting at Rawalpindi on November 8,2007.Since the first anniversary of the Dargai attack falls on that day, this could act as a red rag to the jihadi bull.
The first anniversary of the air attack was observed all over the Bajaur Agency on October 30,2007.. Anti-US and anti-Musharraf processions were taken out.
( B. Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai. E-mail: seventyone2@gmail.com )
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