Cleric Killed At Besieged Pakistan Mosque
The chief cleric of the besieged Red Mosque in Pakistan's capital was killed Tuesday as troops were flushing out entrenched holdouts 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, was killed during the attack.
An army official said Ghazi had received bullet wounds and when he was told to surrender, he gave no reply. Commandos then fired another volley of bullets and found Ghazi dead, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak to media.
Javed Iqbal Cheema, spokesman for the Interior Ministry, confirmed Ghazi's death and said the cleric's body was still lying in the compound, and that "battle hardened" militants were defending themselves.
Ghazi's death could end almost a day of fierce fighting between his supporters and security forces, but could also spark a violent reaction from Pakistan's hardline Islamic groups, already at odds with the country's Western-backed president.
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.
Eight Pakistani soldiers also were killed, the army said.
Khalid Pervez, the city's top administrator, said earlier as many as 50 women had been freed by the militants and emerged from the complex, following the escape of 26 children. It wasn't clear if any hostages remained in the estimated 20 percent of the sprawling compound still under militant control.
Gunfire and explosions thundered over the city earlier in the day, as Army spokesman Gen. Waheed Arshad said more hostages were still being held.
"We are taking a step-by-step approach so there is no collateral damage," he told reporters. "We are fighting room by room." He added that stun grenades were being used to avoid casualties among the hostages.
Government officials said up to 70 blasts were heard in the first two hours of the pre-dawn operation led by members of the military's special forces, the SSG (Special Services Group), which began around 4:00 a.m. local time, reports CBS News' Farhan Bokhari.
After last-ditch efforts to negotiate a surrender failed, commandos attacked from three directions 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.
In addition to the women, Arshad said about 50 suspected militants, some of them youngsters, had been captured or emerged from the mosque since the fighting erupted.
He said the entire compound included 75 rooms, large basements and expansive courtyards.
An officer, who demanded anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press, said earlier that troops had cornered 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.
The assault began minutes after a delegation led by a former prime minister left the area declaring that efforts to negotiate a peaceful end to a week-old siege had failed.
Clashes earlier this month between security forces and supporters of the mosque's hardline clerics prompted the siege. The religious extremists had been trying to impose Taliban-style morality in the capital through a six-month campaign of kidnappings and threats. More than 80 people have been killed since July 3.
The vigilante anti-vice campaign, led by hardline clerics with alleged links to outlawed militant groups, 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.
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.
There was no immediate official confirmation of his claim but 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."
He said that about 30 militants were resisting security forces but were only armed with 14 AK-47 assault rifles.
Pakistan's Religious Affairs Minister Mohammed Ijaz ul-Haq said foreign militants were among those fighting with the mosque defenders, quoting Ghazi. He did not give the numbers or their nationalities.
Rehmatullah Khalil, a senior cleric who was part of a 12-member delegation of mediators that tried to avert the siege at the mosque, accused Musharraf of sabotaging a draft agreement to end the military action.
He said Hussain had prepared an agreement under which Ghazi was to be briefly held in protective custody, and the government would agree to free the students. Only those being sought by police were to be detained.
"We were happy and hoping that the nation will hear a good news, but the government changed almost all clauses of the draft agreement," he told The Associated Press. "The government is responsible for today's bloodshed."
The government denied that any changes to the agreement had been made by the president's office.
The government has said wanted terrorists are organizing the defense of the mosque, while Ghazi has accused security forces of killing scores of students.
The siege gave the surrounding neighborhood the look of a war zone, with troops manning machine guns behind sandbagged posts and from the top of armored vehicles.
It has also sparked anger in Pakistan's restive northwest frontier. On Monday, 20,000 tribesmen, including hundreds of masked militants wielding assault rifles, held a protest in the frontier region of Bajur, many of them chanting "Death to Musharraf."