Tiny Minority of Extremists Update: “Masses protest Pakistani hit on alleged al-Qaida hide-out,” from the Jerusalem Post, with thanks to Looney Tunes:
Hundreds of religious hard-liners chanting “Jihad!” staged rallies in a Pakistani town against an army airstrike on a suspected al-Qaida hide-out and claimed it had killed innocent laborers, police and witnesses said Wednesday.
In the protest, about 1,000 supporters of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI) party marched through Tank, a city about 160 kilometers north of the scene of Tuesday’s attack in the South Waziristan tribal region near the Afghan border that the army said killed eight militants.
“They killed innocent laborers. There were no foreigners or [militant] training centers,” witnesses quoted rally leader Maulana Tahir as saying.
Activists of the JUI, a pro-Taliban Islamic group in the provincial government, chanted, “Jihad! [holy war]” during the protest and “Death to Musharraf!” – referring to Pakistan’s military leader, President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, a key US ally.
A tribal militant vowed to take revenge for the airstrike, the British Broadcasting Corporation reported on its Urdu-language news Web site Wednesday.
“We will take revenge within 10 to 15 days,” the BBC quoted Baitullah Mehsud as saying.