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Residents of village of Chingai, Pakistan, at religious school destroyed October 30 in air attack that killed 80 people. The Pakistani military claimed responsibility.

The government led by Gen. Pervez Musharraf has been under intense U.S. pressure to crack down on Pakistan-based forces, allied with the Taliban, that have been stepping up attacks inside neighboring Afghanistan.

In the border town of Khar some 10,000 people, many of them supporters of Islamist groups, protested the attack on the school. Similar protests took place in Karachi, Peshawar, and other cities nationwide.

Many local legislators and cabinet ministers in the regional government resigned in protest over the attack, increasing the difficulties for Musharraf, who has been seeking to win support in this region, where forces backing the Taliban and al-Qaeda are influential.

Officials in both Washington and Islamabad denied U.S. involvement in the missile attack. Pakistani officials, the Associated Press reported, insisted the strike came from their own military, although they did say it was conducted on the basis of U.S. intelligence.

Government officials said Pakistani helicopters fired five missiles on the school. Some eyewitnesses, however, said the missiles were fired from a U.S. unmanned drone, according to AP.

The target of the attack was reportedly al-Qaeda's second-ranking leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

In January missiles fired from a U.S. drone hit another border town in a similar attempt to kill al-Zawahiri.

In a related development, a report by the Joint Coordination and Monitoring Board said the number of attacks in Afghanistan by Taliban supporters against the Afghan government and NATO forces rose from 300 a month in March to 600 in September. So far this year 3,700 people have been killed in the fighting.

On November 8 a suicide bomber detonated his explosives on a military training ground in northwest Pakistan, killing at least 42 army recruits, government officials reported.

Washington has stepped up pressure on Pakistan to help more in the fighting Taliban and al-Qaeda supporters along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

Top military officials from NATO, Afghanistan, and Pakistan met in Kabul November 11 to review plans for a joint center to share intelligence in the "war on terror," Agence France-Presse reported. The Musharraf government, a former protector of the Taliban-led regime in Afghanistan before it was routed in the 2001 U.S. invasion, has been transformed into an unstable but staunch U.S. strategic ally in the region. Last year the Pakistani government received about $1.1 billion in “logistical” aid for the “war against terrorism,” according to a recent report by the Asian Development Bank. Over the past three years Islamabad has received about $3.7 billion in U.S. funds for such operations.  
 
 
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