The timing, in concert with a visit by Prince Charles of the U.K., is questionable. The slaughter is irrefutable.

Pakistani troops backed by missile-firing helicopters killed an estimated 80 militants today after destroying a purported al-Qaida-linked training facility near the Afghan border, the military said.

The pre-dawn attack targeted a religious school ̫ known as a madrassa – in Chingai village near Khar, the main town in the Bajur tribal district, said army spokesman Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan.

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Siraj ul-Haq, a Cabinet minister from the North West Frontier Province, condemned the attack and announced he would resign from the government in protest.

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Body parts scattered the area, lying in pools of blood, on torn bed mattresses and among Islamic books, including copies of the Koran. Villagers put mutilated body parts into large plastic bags normally used to hold fertiliser. Article

More:

The DG ISPR said that gunship helicopters fired four to five rockets, which hit the Madrassah. He denied any civilian casualty in the air strike.

Meanwhile, eyewitnesses said that majority of the killed were children who were present in the seminary during air raid.

Three persons with severe injuries were brought to a local hospital; said Dr. Imran.

Meanwhile, senior provincial minister Sirajul Haq and MNA of the area Haroonur Rasheed attended the funeral of some victims of the air strike and announced resignation as a protest to the incident. Article

Related, but only one source thus far, so take that into consideration:

Pakistani authorities claimed immediately that the raid was carried out by Pakistani forces. However, Asia Times Online contacts on the spot are convinced that the raid was undertaken by North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces. Recently, Islamabad agreed with NATO that it could conduct operations in Pakistan from across the border in Afghanistan.

Monday’s attack came two days after thousands of pro-Taliban tribesmen held an anti-US, anti-NATO rally in Damadola in the Bajour area close to the site of a US missile attack that killed several al-Qaeda members and civilians in January.

Authorities say information that Taliban or al-Qaeda fugitives were in the region prompted Monday’s raid. The border village lies opposite the Afghan province of Kunar and is considered a major corridor for militants to enter Afghanistan. In May, Pakistani authorities said a senior al-Qaeda figure, Abu Marwan al-Suri, had been killed in Bajour during a clash with local police.

Just as they are denying NATO involvement in Monday’s attack, Pakistani authorities also initially denied the US had carried out the January attack.

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Significantly, Pakistan and Taliban authorities struck a peace deal in Bajour only two days ago and were scheduled to sign a document to that effect on Monday. This lends credence to the possibility that it was NATO and not Pakistani forces that made the raid. Article

And:

The military action sparked protests in the area, and in the neighbouring North-West Frontier Province, where a Minister belonging to the Jamaat-e-Islami resigned. The Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, religious coalition that rules the province, announced it would organise nation-wide protests on Tuesday. Qazi Hussein Ahmed, leader of JI and the MMA, rubbished the military claim that the madrasa was harbouring militants and said a number of children were among the dead. The Army had acted under pressure from the U.S., he alleged.

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He said the military had given warnings to the madrassa, located in Chenagai, about 10 km north of the main Bajaur town of Khar, to “close down the facility” but “they failed to do so.”

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He confirmed that foreigners were among those killed, but said there were no high-value Al-Qaeda suspects in the madrasa. No women or children were killed, Maj-Gen Sultan said. The madrasa was in an isolated area and there were no houses nearby and therefore, no chance of collateral damage. But media reports quoted local residents of the area saying there were children who were students at the madrasa among the dead. Television footage showed sheet-covered bodies laid out on rows of cots. According to some reports, local people took out a protest march in Khar. Article

From Afghanistan, but highly related:

The dilapidated building near the mosque in the center of Mazar-e-Sharif does not seem like one of the finest religious institutions in Balkh province. The Sheikh Marghiani madrassa provides an Islamic education to approximately 100 students, but the classrooms look more like mountain caves than seats of learning.

The poor state of the school is witness to the Afghan government’s lack of attention to religious study, say those who attend the institution.

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The 35-year-old student intends to go to Pakistan soon to continue his religious education, because, he says, there are no adequate facilities in Afghanistan.

“Many of my friends went to Pakistan last year,” he said. “They learned a lot and the facilities are better than here.”

Although precise figures are not available, thousands of religious students go abroad every year, mostly to Pakistan, to complete their religious education. And it is in Pakistani madrassas that these students get radicalised, say government officials. If religious fundamentalism is to be combated, then the government must find a way of keeping the taleban at home.

Qari Habibullah, now studying at the Sheikh Marghiani school, spent four years at a madrassa in Pakistan.

“Most of my friends joined the Taleban or al-Qaeda after graduation,” he said. “Many religious students join the Taleban because they are not sure they can get jobs in Afghanistan.”

The Taleban began as a protest movement by religious students against the abuses of the Afghan warlords who dominated the country in the early Nineties. The word taleb refers to any religious student, and taleban is simply the plural.

In Afghanistan, the struggle is now on to keep the taleban from turning into Taleban.

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Abdul Qadeer Salehi, who heads an Islamic association in Afghanistan’s north, was sceptical of the new programme, saying that it was more an exercise in international politics than a genuine attempt to improve conditions for students.

“The government’s real objective is to use the madrassas as part of an anti-Pakistan policy,” he said. “If the government sincerely wants to reconstruct religious schools and not to misuse them, then our religious students will not leave the country. But it seems unlikely to me that the government is acting honestly.”

Qayoum Babak, a political analyst in Mazar-e-Sharif, agrees.

“There is fighting in the south, and they say the roots of the violence lie in Pakistan, so the government is compelled to implement a decisive policy,” he told IWPR.

“The government wants to tell those who now go to Pakistan that opportunities will be provided in their own country. But the situation will become even more dangerous if the government cannot live up to its promises. Religious students will despair of getting any help in Afghanistan and will flock to Pakistan and other Muslim countries.” Article