Airstrike victims were all militants: Musharraf

However, angry local tribesmen said that victims of the airstrike, which killed 80 people, were innocent students.

Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf said on Tuesday that 80 people killed in a raid on a religious school or madrassa near the Afghan border were all militants undergoing training.

HT Image

The comments were Musharraf's first since Monday's airstrike in a tribal region bordering Afghanistan. Angry local tribesmen say the dead were innocent students.

"They were militants doing military training. We were watching them for the last six or seven days -- we knew exactly who they are, what they are doing," Musharraf told a security conference in Islamabad.