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[January 15, 2006]

DJ US Told Pakistan About Airstrike After It Happened-Source

(Comtex Finance Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Jan 15, 2006 (Dow Jones Commodities News Select via Comtex) --Two top Pakistani officials - one from the nation's powerful military, the other from the civilian government - said Sunday that Pakistan was only told by U.S. officials about Friday's purported CIA airstrike that killed at least 17 people after it happened.

Neither official wanted to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter.

Pakistani officials have strongly condemned the airstrike, which they said missed its apparent target, Ayman al-Zawahri, al-Qaida's No. 2 leader. Pakistan is a key U.S. ally in the war on terror but doesn't allow U.S. forces on its soil. On Saturday, the government lodged a diplomatic protest and condemned the attack, saying it had killed innocent civilians.

The airstrike occurred in the ethnic Pashtun hamlet of Damadola, about four miles from the border with Afghanistan. The White House declined comment on Sunday, and officials at several U.S. agencies haven't provided details about the attack.

A U.S. counterterrorism official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the information's sensitivity, said it is still unclear if al-Zawahri was killed in the attack.

Two Pakistani intelligence officials said that al-Zawahri, who has a wife from a local tribe, had been invited to a dinner in Damadola village to mark last week's Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha, but apparently changed his mind.

The two Pakistani officials told The Associated Press that this could explain why Friday's predawn attack missed al-Zawahri, Osama bin Laden's top lieutenant.

One of the officials said al-Zawahri had sent some aides instead and investigators were trying to determine whether they had been in any of the three houses that were destroyed in the airstrike.

The officials both spoke on condition of anonymity because they aren't authorized to speak to journalists. They said their information was from Pakistan's own security agencies and intelligence shared by the CIA after the attack.

A senior Pakistani army official told The Associated Press on Sunday that "foreigners" were reported in the area around Damadola, but he said there was no information al-Zawahri was among them.

Survivors in Damadola denied militants were there, but some news reports quoted unidentified Pakistani officials as saying up to 11 extremists were believed among the dead.

A Pakistani intelligence official said that 12 bodies, including seven foreigners, had been taken from the village, which lies about seven kilometers from Afghanistan. He said the bodies were reclaimed by other militants, although another Pakistani official told AP on Saturday that some were taken away for DNA tests. A law enforcement official in Washington said the FBI expected to conduct the tests to determine victims' identities, although Pakistan hadn't yet formally requested them.

It wasn't immediately possible to reconcile the conflicting accounts, which reflect widespread confusion over the attack and the refusal of the government to comment on the details of what happened.

The claims by the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, couldn't be independently verified.

A senior government official said Pakistan had been investigating rumors that al-Zawahri had in recent months visited the tribal region of Bajur where Damadola is located - a tip gleaned from the interrogation of Abu Farraj al-Libbi, a senior al-Qaida figure arrested in a northwestern Pakistan town in May.

The new details emerged as Islamic groups held nationwide protests and anger mounted over the attack. Many in this nation of 150 million people oppose the government's participation in the U.S.-led war against international terrorist groups, and there is increasing frustration over a recent series of suspected U.S. attacks along the frontier aimed at militants.

Meanwhile, the governor of the Afghan province across from Bajur region, where Damadola is, said Afghanistan's government had formed a 1,000-man tribal militia to watch the border.

"Al-Qaida, as well as the Taliban and other militants have camps over the border," Kunar Gov. Assadullah Wafa said.

He said the new force made up of young men from villages in the area would "hopefully make it harder for the militants" to slip across the frontier.

"But the border is so long and so rugged that it's easy for them to come and go," he conceded.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

01-15-06 1529ET

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