Thousands of tribesman chanting "Death to America" rallied against the Pakistani and US governments ahead of nationwide protests over a raid on an Islamic school that killed 80 people.

Activists of Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal chant anti-government slogans during a protest held in Islamabad October 31, 2006, to condemn an army attack on a religious school in the Chenagai area of the Bajaur tribal region bordering Afghanistan. More than 15,000 armed Pakistani tribesmen protested on Tuesday over a Pakistan Army helicopter attack on an al-Qaeda-linked religious school that killed around 80 suspected militants. REUTERS/Faisal Mahmood (PAKISTAN)

Pakistan launched its deadliest ever airstrike on Monday against a religious college or madrassa in the troubled Bajaur tribal region bordering Afghanistan, saying it doubled as an Al-Qaeda-linked militant training camp.

But Islamists insist the dead were students and more than 5,000 bearded tribesmen wearing turbans protested on Tuesday in Khar, the main town in the rugged region to condemn the pre-dawn attack.

The tribesmen recited religious poetry and shouted "Death to Bush" and "Death to Musharraf", an AFP correspondent said. Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf is a key ally in US leader George W. Bush's "war on terror".

Authorities closed all entry routes to the mountain-fringed town to prevent outsiders from coming into Bajaur and to keep law and order, a local administration official said.

Islamist leaders accused the United States of either ordering the strike on the madrassa, which Pakistan says was launched by its own helicopter gunships, or of actually carrying out the raid using Predator drones.

"It was the Americans who fired a missile on the madrassa and later Pakistani helicopters came to take the responsibility for the Americans' act," Islamic fundamentalist parliamentarian Haroon Rashid told AFP in Khar.

"I live just one kilometre (over half a mile) away from the madrassa and witnessed everything," added Rashid, who said he had resigned from politics in protest.

Pakistan's biggest coalition of religious parties, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA -- United Action Front) has also called protests in several cities.

MMA Chief Qazi Hussain Ahmed was travelling to Khar in a convoy to offer his condolences, a spokesman for the coalition said in the northwestern city of Peshawar, but government sources said he would likely be denied entry.

In the conservative northwestern city of Peshawar, schools and offices were open and public transport was operating but Islamists prepared to hold a peaceful protest in the city centre later in the day.

Extra security had already been deployed in Peshawar due to a planned Tuesday visit by Britain's Prince Charles and his wife Camilla, which was cancelled on security fears following the deadly airstrike.

In Karachi, Pakistan's biggest city, police stepped up security around the US Consulate, closing a main road leading to the building following a protest on Monday when bearded Islamists burned a US flag.

Pakistan's military said the raid killed around 80 militants, including some foreigners and a local Taliban commander, Maulvi Liaqat, who ran the Islamic school, also known as a madrassa.

Around four missiles were fired at the concrete-walled compound, reducing much of it to rubble. Dozens of mangled bodies covered in sheets were laid out on makeshift beds afterwards for funeral prayers.

Liaqat was an associate of Al-Qaeda's deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, who in January escaped a similar air strike at Damadola, about two kilometres (one mile) away from the site of Monday's attack, security sources said.

The madrassa was being used as a training centre to send hardcore Islamic fighters across the border into Afghanistan to attack NATO soldiers, they added.

Musharraf recently approved a peace deal between insurgents in North Waziristan, another of Pakistan's seven semi-autonomous tribal areas, and there was speculation before Monday that a similar accord was planned for Bajaur.

The airstrike came two days after thousands of pro-militant tribesmen gathered in Bajaur and chanted their support for Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Omar.

Pakistan has spent the last five years battling Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants, who sought sanctuary in the tribal areas after fleeing Afghanistan following the US-led ousting of the Taliban regime in late 2001.

Copyright © 2006 AFP

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