WORLD / Asia-Pacific
Pakistani militants snub surrender call
(AP)
Updated: 2007-07-06 02:02
Gunfire and explosions rocked a besieged radical mosque in Pakistan's
capital Thursday as Islamic militants holed up in the complex snubbed a
plea from their captured leader to surrender.
Pakistani religious students surrender outside the Lal Masjid, or Red
Mosque in Islamabad wldThursday, July 5, 2007. Several explosions rang
out near a radical mosque besieged by security forces, hours after its
top cleric was captured trying to sneak out of the complex under a
woman's burqa. [AP]
The army seemed to be holding back from a large-scale assault, however.
The government was keen to avoid a bloodbath that would further damage
President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's embattled administration and said
troops would not storm the mosque while women and children were inside.
Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao said soldiers were trying to blast
holes in the walls of the fortress-like compound of the mosque and an
adjoining seminary for girls, seeking to wear down the defenders' resolve
and force a surrender without a bloody battle.
It wasn't clear how many people were holed up in the compound. The
Interior Ministry said about 30 die-hard extremists were inside, while
intelligence officials said there could be as many as 100. The military
said several hundred students also might be in the compound.
Soldiers backed by armored vehicles and helicopters surrounded the Lal
Masjid, or Red Mosque, before dawn Wednesday, a day after the start of
clashes between security forces and radical followers of the mosque that
have killed at least 19 people.
The violence brought to a head a six-month standoff between Pakistan's
U.S.-backed government and its top cleric, Maulana Abdul Aziz, who
challenged Musharraf with a drive to impose Taliban-style Islamic law in
Islamabad.
Journalists were barred from the area around the mosque, but several
explosions were heard during a period of intense gunfire before dusk
Thursday, sending a plume of black smoke into the sky.
A leader inside the mosque accused troops of firing several mortar rounds
that killed 27 female students.
"A large section of the mosque is damaged and fires have broken out in
the Jamia Hafsa (seminary)," Abdul Qayyum told The Associated Press by
telephone, coughing repeatedly. "It's total chaos here. There is smoke
everywhere and a fire in the room where we were keeping dead bodies" from
earlier skirmishes.
Sherpao insisted no mortars were fired and said the alleged casualties
were "just their claims."
The shooting later eased and the smoke cleared.
Officials said they were using helicopters and explosions in hopes of
breaking the nerve of the mosque defenders and inducing a surrender. "We
are using restraint on instructions from the president so that people
surrender voluntarily," Sherpao said.
Aziz, who was captured Wednesday evening as he tried to slip through the
army cordon disguised in a woman's burqa and high heels, said on state
television that as many as 700 women and about 250 men remained inside
the complex, armed with more than a dozen AK-47 assault rifles.
"If they can get out quietly they should go, or they can surrender if
they want to," Aziz said. "I saw after coming out that the siege is very
intense. ... Our companions will not be able to stay for long."
His comments raised the prospect of a swift resolution and a victory for
Musharraf, who is under growing pressure at home and abroad over
spreading religious extremism and his botched attempt to fire Pakistan's
chief justice.
But the cleric's brother, Abdul Rashid Ghazi, remained inside the mosque
with die-hard followers and rejected the government's call for an
unconditional surrender.
Speaking by phone to Pakistan's Geo news channel, Ghazi demanded a
guarantee they would not be arrested and said authorities must let him
move his mother and sister-in-law out of the complex to safety.
He denied claims by officials that he was using young students as human
shields. "The charges against me are forged and fabricated," he said.
"The government has been reduced to callousness."
Qayyum, Ghazi's aide, declined to comment on the statement from Aziz or
to describe living conditions in the compound, where power and water had
been cut off for days.
Deputy Information Minister Tariq Azim said earlier that some of the
1,100 supporters who had fled the mosque and seminary told officials that
Ghazi retreated to a cellar along with 20 female "hostages" and that the
holdouts had "large quantities of automatic weapons." Officials said the
militants also had hand grenades, explosives and homemade gasoline bombs.
Azim said there would be no more negotiations.
"Enough time has already been wasted. It has to be total, unconditional
surrender," he said, but added: "As long as there are women and children
inside, I don't think that we will go in."
On Thursday, seven men jumped over the mosque wall and tried to escape
through a storm drain, but were caught by troops, said Col. Mohammed Ali,
a military spokesman. He said the seven were "part of the hard core," but
provided no other details.
Since January, the clerics have defied the government by sending students
to occupy a library, intimidate shopkeepers selling Western music and
films and kidnap alleged prostitutes and police officers as part of a
Taliban-style anti-vice campaign.
In his TV interview, the gray-bearded Aziz, still dressed in a burqa,
said that his mosque has "a relationship of love and affection with all
jihadist organizations" but that it maintains no actual links with such
groups.
"We have no militants; we only had students. If somebody came from
outside, I have no information on that," he said. He denied
responsibility for calls Tuesday from the mosque's loudspeakers for
suicide attacks.
Officials said Aziz and Ghazi would be put on trial on more than 25
charges including kidnapping, incitement to murder and arms offenses,
while women, children and males not involved in crimes were being granted
amnesty.
Students emerging from the mosque Thursday said the morale of those who
remained was good, and many stressed that they left only at the
insistence of worried parents.
"They are in high spirits," Mehboob Waly said after exiting to meet his
waiting father.
Mohammed Naveed, a teenager who responded to his mother's pleas for him
to leave, said: "I came out with a heavy heart. I was scared to be
inside, but I was also scared to come out."
Like many of the mosque's students, both are from northwestern Pakistan,
an impoverished region where radical Islam is strong.
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