Pakistan Defends Deadly Attack on School

Pakistani students hold placards during protest rally to condemn bombing in Pakistani tribal area, Wednesday, Nov. 1, 2006 in Peshawar Pakistan. Human Rights Watch called for an independent investigation into an air raid that killed 80 people at a seminary that Pakistani officials claim was used for militant training and had been visited by al-Qaida's No. 2 leader. (AP Photo/Mohammad Zubair) (Mohammad Zubair - AP)

"The onus is on the Pakistani government to provide a credible account of the legitimacy of the attack resulting in the deaths of so many," the group's South Asia researcher Ali Dayan Hasan said, adding the high number of dead pointed to use of excessive force.

Samina Ahmed, the South Asia project director for the International Crisis Group, said the military should have detained those inside the building, not killed them.

"There was not a fight going on at the time, it wasn't in the heat of the battle," Ahmed said. "A more effective tactic would have been law enforcement, do a cordon-and-search, arrest people and try them."

Sultan, the army spokesman, declined to say if those in the school were armed, but said their training made them dangerous.

"We think the response was justified," he said.

Among those killed was Liaquat Hussain, a fugitive cleric who ran the school. The attack was launched after Hussain, an associate of al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri, rejected government warnings to stop using the school as a terrorist training camp, Sultan said.

Another al-Zawahri lieutenant, Faqir Mohammed, left the school 30 minutes before the missile strike, according to an intelligence official.

A Pakistani official also claimed that al-Zawahri and al-Qaida's operational commander in Kunar province, London terror plot mastermind Abu Ubaida, had visited the school, but were not there during the attack.

Musharraf's government has been under U.S. and Afghan pressure to crack down on militants operating along the Pakistan-Afghan frontier.

___

Associated Press writer Habibullah Khan in Khar contributed to this report.