Pakistan Mosque Standoff

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Jul 10, 10:33 AM EDT

Chief cleric killed at Pakistan mosque

By ZARAR KHAN
Associated Press Writer

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- The chief cleric of the Red Mosque was killed Tuesday as Pakistani troops flushed out entrenched militants inside a women's religious school in room by room fighting, state-run television said.

Pakistan Television quoted the Interior Ministry as saying that the radical cleric, Abdul Rashid Ghazi, died during the attack. Two security officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the press, said Ghazi's body was found in the basement.

Commandos stormed the sprawling mosque compound before dawn. Twelve hours later, the army said the complex was 80 percent cleared of militants but it was still trying to root out well-armed defenders the government accuses of holding a number of hostages. A local relief agency said the army asked for 400 white funeral shrouds.

The extremists had been using the mosque as a base to send out radicalized students to enforce their version of Islamic morality, including abducting alleged prostitutes and trying to "re-educate" them at the mosque.

Khalid Pervez, the city's top administrator, said as many as 50 women were the first to be freed by the militants and had emerged from the complex following the escape of 26 children.

Mohammed Khalid Jamil, a reporter for the local Aaj television network, was among journalists who said they saw dozens of women and girls walking on a road away from the mosque. They were wearing burqas, he said.

A military official who demande because he was not authorized to speak to the press, said the women included the wife and daughter of Abdul Aziz, the former head of the mosque who was arrested while trying to flee the complex last week.

It was not clear how many noncombatants were being held hostage or were staying behind because they believed in the mosque's cause. Last week, a number of those who left the mosque, including young women, said their colleagues were there of their own free will and prepared to die.

Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad said hostages were still being held and that fighting was intense: "We are fighting room by room." He added that stun grenades were being used to avoid casualties among the hostages.

Abdul Sattar Edhi, head of the private relief agency Edhi Foundation, told reporters that the army had asked him to prepare 400 white shrouds used for covering the dead.

The siege of one of the capital's most prominent mosques was prompted by clashes last Tuesday between security forces and supporters of the mosque's hardline clerics. More than 80 people have been killed in the fighting since July 3.

The vigilante anti-vice campaign has proved an embarrassment to President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, a key U.S. ally in its war on terror, and underlined his administration's failure to control extremist religious schools.

But a major loss of life at the Red Mosque could further turn public opinion against the president, who already faces mounting opposition for his bungled attempts to fire the country's chief justice.

Arshad said about 50 militants have been killed in Tuesday's assault, while eight soldiers had died and 29 were wounded.

To protest the siege, more than 100 armed tribesmen and religious students near the northwestern town of Batagram temporarily blocked a road that leads to neighboring China, police officials said.

And in the eastern city of Multan, more than 500 Islamic religious school students rallied, chanting "Down with Musharraf" and blocking a main road by burning tires.

The U.S. Embassy recommended that Americans in Pakistan to limit their movement in the area of the northwestern city of Peshawar, warning that "terrorist elements" were threatening attacks on Pakistani government, police and army institutions in retaliation for the Red Mosque siege.

After efforts to negotiate a surrender failed, commandos attacked from three directions about 4 a.m. and quickly cleared the ground floor of the mosque, Arshad said. Some 20 children who rushed toward the advancing troops were brought to safety, he said.

Besides the women, Arshad said about 50 suspected militants, some of them youngsters, have been captured or emerged from the mosque since fighting began Tuesday.

Arshad said the army attack was now focused on the women's school but that some militants were still firing from the tops of the mosque's minarets. He said the entire compound included 75 rooms, large basements and expansive courtyards. About 80 percent of it had been cleared, he said.

An officer, who demanded anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press, said troops had cornered the mosque's chief cleric, Abdul Rashid Ghazi, in the basement of the school but held back from an all-out assault because a number of children were being held there as hostages.

Troops demanded four times that he surrender, but his followers responded with gunfire, and Ghazi said he was ready to die rather than give up, the officer said.

Arshad said the well-trained militants were armed with machine guns, rocket launchers and gasoline bombs and had booby-trapped some areas.

"Those who surrender will be arrested, but the others will be treated as combatants and killed," he said.

Pakistan's Religious Affairs Minister Mohammed Ijaz ul-Haq said foreign militants were among those fighting with the mosque defenders, quoting Ghazi.

Ghazi told the private Geo TV network in a telephone interview about two hours after Tuesday's assault began that his mother had been wounded by gunshot. One of Ghazi's aides, Abdul Rahman, later said she had died.

"The government is using full force. This is naked aggression," he said. "My martyrdom is certain now."

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Violet Oboe said:

The indian press is full of glee about a Pakistan sinking deeper and deeper... once the elite commandos of the Pakistan Army were trained for taking the Lal Qala (the red fort in Delhi) now they are taking carnage to the Lal Masjid in the heart of Islamabad.

Several papers are even suggesting that Pakistan will disintegrate soon and that India could ´manage´a dismemberment into three new statelets like India had accomplished the secession of Bangladesh back in 1971. Currently Pakistan is in a very bad situation and certain people in India and the West are rubbing their hands since a destruction of the Pakistani state would give them the chance to ´iraqisize´Pakistan and destroy Pakistan's nuclear infrastructure (India would perhaps be happy to oblige and take over the nuclear stockpile).

The only reliable friend of Pakistan for more than 40 years has been China and as long as Musharraf ignores this fact by continuing his pact with Washington and London he is bringing the entire nation in great peril. Most ´terror experts´in the West maintain without any hesitation that Pakistan is the real center of global terrorism. Correspondingly they see the Pakistani military forces and the ISI as a part of the problem and not of the solution and consequently the US in cahoots with India is currently trying to ´reform´ the military (i.e. removing islamic and nationalist officers and replacing them with pro-western guys) but if this plan does not succeed they will resort to other means like dismembering Pakistan. (Pakistan would probably collapse without a strong and independent Army and Washington and New Delhi are fully aware of this ... )

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Violet Oboe said:

In no way my intention was to indicate that this kind of fundamentalist fanatics is currently very popular in Pakistan or that the Army was wrong to take action after a certain red line was crossed by them. :nono:

Moreover I wanted to point out that Musharraf has handled the crisis badly and that he could have avoided that much bloodshed if he had acted timely on information and advice from ISI.

The central problem is that Musharraf has to take the new and very menacing Washington - New-Delhi alliance into consideration!
Crazyinsane, you have correctly mentioned the dangerous Naxalite rebels killing indian police and military nearly every day and currently controlling parts of nine union states. Nevertheless the ´Red Mosque´and other incidents of extremism in Pakistan are making the headlines in the West and Naxalites, Maoists and other dangerous developments (e.g. rampant organized crime de facto controlling Mumbai) in India are intentionally ignored completely by the western media. The reason is quite simple: they want to exert pressure on Pakistan for achieving regime change! Benazir Bhutto is already waiting behind the curtains to restore her corrupt pseudo democratic regime, disrupt Pakistans strategic alliance with China, sell the nuclear program down the river and turning the Army into mercenaries fighting dirty wars for a purely american cause!

Crazy, I suggest that you may read the indian press (The Hindu e.g) more regularly. After all you might get a glimpse of how India is systematically expanding her power in south asia and planning a 1971 redux!

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