Pak 20 dead in army raid

Chingai (Pakistan): Pakistani troops backed by missile-firing helicopters destroyed a purported al-Qaeda-linked training facility in a northwestern tribal area near the Afghan border on Monday, officials said.

At least 20 people were killed in the attack, they added.

The pre-dawn attack targeted a religious school — known as a madrassa — holding 70-80 militants in Chingai village near Khar, the main town in the Bajur tribal district, Army Spokesman Maj Gen Shaukat Sultan said.

The bodies of 20 tribesmen killed in the attack were lined in a field near the madrassa before an impromptu burial attended by thousands of locals, according to an agency reporter at the scene.

Sultan said that the attack targeted terrorists training at the al-Qaeda-linked facility, but local leaders said those killed in the raid were innocent civilians.

Among the dead was Liaquat Hussain, a local Islamic cleric who ran the madrassa and who is believed to have been sheltering al-Qaeda militants, and several of his aides, locals said.