PESHAWAR, 2 January 2003 — A US B-52 warplane bombed a Pakistani madrasa (religious school) near the border with Afghanistan earlier this week after a gunfight between US forces and a Pakistani patrol, witnesses said yesterday.
Residents of the border district of South Waziristan described the weekend raid, which was revealed by the US military on Tuesday, saying warplanes roared overhead throughout Sunday night and dropped two bombs on the school, known as a madrassa.
The raid was launched on Sunday after US forces patrolling the Afghan side of the border in the hunt for extremists were fired on by a Pakistani border scout, a US military statement released in Afghanistan said.
A B-52 fighter plane was called in to pursue the attacker and his companions as they fled to a nearby building, and dropped one 500-pound bomb inside Afghan territory, the statement said. A US soldier was injured in the firefight and flown to Germany for treatment.
Several residents said two bombs hit a school in the Pakistani frontier town of Angoor Adda, some 400 km southwest of the capital Islamabad, but caused no casualties as students were on holidays.
"Two bombs were dropped on Maulvi Hassan Wazir’s madrassa at Angoor Adda. They damaged the outer wall but nobody was hurt as it was winter vacation," said resident Salamat Jan.
One bomb landed in the school’s yard and another hit its outer wall, he said. "We heard the roaring of aircraft the whole night," Jan added.
Samad Khan said the exchange of fire lasted around 15 minutes. "Then US warplanes bombed the madrassa," he told AFP.
Local shopkeeper Ahmad Khan claimed he saw three US soldiers attempt to cross the border. "After an exchange of hot words the US and Pakistani forces started firing on each other," Khan told AFP.
He said he saw three injured US soldiers on the ground and then heard the roar of warplanes. "When the dust settled nothing was there and the US soldiers had disappeared."
US military spokeswoman Capt. Alaine Cramer said the bomb landed within the recognized boundaries of Afghanistan about 300 meters beyond a Pakistani checkpoint.
The US-led coalition, engaged in a 14-month hunt for Al-Qaeda and Taleban extremists in land-locked Afghanistan, is allowed to use Pakistani air space to fly in planes from outside bases but is prohibited from using the airspace for combat.
The bombing is certain to fuel already strong anti-US feeling in the Pakistani border region, where many residents have ethnic ties and religious affinities with the hard-line Taleban and resent Islamabad’s cooperation with the US in tracking down fugitive extremists.
Pakistan has been one of the United States’ closest allies in its so-called war on terror prompted by the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.
It claims to have around 70,000 troops posted in the border area flushing out extremists who have fled Afghanistan across the porous frontier. Extremists have launched repeated attacks on US forces patrolling the border area. (AFP)
