By Andrew L. Jaffee

I have wondered openly about Pakistani President Musharraf’s claim to be the West’s “main ally” in the war against Islamo-fascism, but today’s airstrike by helicopter gunships against terrorists in the Bajaur tribal area near Afghanistan shows that Pervez just might be serious about cleaning his nation up. From the BBC:

At least 80 militants have been killed in an air strike by Pakistani forces on a madrassa (religious school) used as a militant training camp, the army says. …

The leader of the madrassa, radical cleric Maulana Liaqat Ullah Hussain, was among the dead.

He was a prominent member of a group of pro-Taleban tribal clerics, the BBC’s Rahimullah Yusufzai in Peshawar says.

“We received confirmed intelligence reports that 70-80 militants were hiding in a madrassa used as a terrorist training facility, which was destroyed by an army strike, led by helicopters,” army spokesman Maj Gen Shaukat Sultan told the Associated Press news agency.

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Related: War Against Islamo-fascism, Pakistan, Terrorist Groups

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