At Least 106 Dead In Pakistan Mosque Siege

Al Qaeda No. 2 Al-Zawahri Asks Pakistanis To Wage Holy War Against Their Government In Retaliation

(CBS/AP)  Commandos cleared the warren-like Red Mosque complex of rebel fighters Wednesday, ending a fierce eight-day siege and street battles that left more than 100 dead. The government warned it would not tolerate militancy in any of Pakistan's thousands of religious schools.

Hours later, deputy al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri released a video calling for Pakistanis to wage holy war against their government in retaliation for the assault.

The video was released by al Qaeda's multimedia branch, as-Sahab. Its authenticity could not immediately be confirmed, but two U.S.-based terrorism monitoring groups also reported it.

Officials searching the mosque after the assault found no corpses of women and children, although seven or eight of the bodies had been burned beyond recognition, apparently by the militants' gasoline bombs, said Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad, a military spokesman.

At least 106 people were killed overall since the violence began at the Red Mosque. They included 10 soldiers, one police ranger and several civilians who died in the crossfire in the initial street fighting last week.

Among the dead was the mosque's pro-Taliban cleric, Abdul Rashid Ghazi.

Arshad said 73 bodies believed to be those of the mosque's die-hard defenders were found after the final, 35-hour assault that began early Tuesday.

“There may be a few more which may be found in the debris. We don't expect there will be many,” Arshad told Dawn News television. “We have handed them (the bodies) to the civilian authorities.”

The elite Special Services Group commandos went in after unsuccessful attempts to get the militants to surrender to the siege mounted by the government following deadly street clashes with armed supporters of the mosque July 3.

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 compound in the heart of Pakistan's capital.

Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz warned that the government would act against any other madrassa, or religious school, found to be involved in militancy.

“Militancy cannot be promoted, period,” he told reporters. “The law will take its course, as the law took its course here.”

President Gen. Pervez Musharraf vowed five years ago to regulate Pakistan's thousands of religious schools, but concerns have only grown that some are used as sanctuaries or training sites for militants — including Taliban rebels fighting in Afghanistan.

Deputy Information Minister Tariq Azim conceded it was possible that other madrassas in Pakistan could be harboring weaponry like the Red Mosque, but added that the assault had sent a strong message that the government “meant business.”

“We need to be now much more vigilant, but I hope they (extremist madrassas) have got the message that if they are in involved in such activities, they will have to face action,” he said.

An army officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said troops moved from room to room in basements of the compound, blowing up foxholes where militants had been entrenched.

Relatives of young women, men and children who had been in the mosque waited behind army barricades and inquired at morgues or a sports stadium where authorities set up an information center for those seeking missing loved ones.

“I am looking for my son who was studying at the madrassa, but I don't know whether he is alive,” said Jan Mohammed, 42, whose son, Mohammed Khan, could not leave the mosque during the siege. He was among about 100 parents who were gathered at the sports stadium.

Ghazi's body was found in the basement of a women's religious school after a fierce gunbattle between government troops and militants, said Brig. Javed Iqbal Cheema, a senior Interior Ministry official.

Several security officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, said Ghazi was wounded by two bullets and gave no response when ordered to surrender. Commandos then fired another volley and found him dead.

Arshad said Ghazi's body had been handed over to the Interior Ministry.

Cheema said the body was taken for burial in Ghazi's native village of Rojhan in southwestern Pakistan. His brother, Abdul Aziz, the mosque's chief who was arrested trying to escape from the complex last week, would be allowed to attend the funeral.

The military announced that about 1,300 people had escaped or otherwise left the compound since July 3. Authorities took an unknown number into custody, while others, mostly young students, have returned to their homes.

Arshad said the media would be taken on a tour of the mosque complex, but probably not until Thursday.

The casualties at the Red Mosque could further turn public opinion against President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who already faces a backlash for his bungled attempts to fire the country's chief justice.

Following several fiery anti-government protests Tuesday, about 500 people chanting “Death to Musharraf!” rallied for an hour Wednesday in the northwest frontier city of Peshawar.

“This (mosque attack) is part of our government's action against religious elements to please America,” said Shabbir Khan, a lawmaker from an opposition Islamic party, at the demonstration.

About 15 other Islamic opposition lawmakers gathered in front of the Supreme Court in Islamabad, blaming Musharraf for Pakistan's troubles, including the mosque attack, and calling for his resignation.

Anger over the siege also reached fundamentalist Islamic communities far from the region.

About 50 demonstrators gathered Wednesday afternoon across the road from the Pakistani Embassy in London. The London leader of the extremist sect to which Osama bin Laden and the Taliban also belong rallied followers with angry cries of, "Musharraf, you will pay. Sharia law is on the way."

Anjem Choudary, whose group held the rally against "the apostate regime of Pervez Musharraf," shouted to the crowd gathered in central London, "Where are the Islamists? Let them come and demonstrate."

Choudary told CBSNews.com that the government had "bombed innocent women and children" inside the Red Mosque complex, and the only weapons held by the people inside had been licensed guns.

When asked about the mosque's members kidnapping people off the streets of Pakistan, Choudary said, "They didn't kill them, they removed them. It was absolutely correct."

[lfitts1]

Choudary's hardline group advocates Sharia, or Islamic, Taliban-style rule, for Pakistan and across the Muslim world. "As Muslims, we abide by the Sharia, even if the government doesn't. It is our responsibility to make sure it is implemented. We follow the Prophet Mohammed, not Musharraf."

To the idea that it was the people of Pakistan's responsibility to instigate change in the way the country was led by political means, Choudary said: "We don't believe in those concepts of Democracy and liberalism %u2026 It's not about the majority, forget the minority and majority."


And we want to instill democratic governments into this area and we wonder why it is not working...hmmmm...the Islamic fundamentalists do not respect democracy, free speech, majority rule or minority rights--go try and negotiate with these groups

[eggy1620]

That was no mosque. It was an armory.

[ban_islam]

Posted by lfitts1

well said

[eggy1620]

*** like this and that camp in Lebanon would be happening in the U.S. if the Feds had not acted so decisively, and correctly, at places like Ruby Ridge and Waco, Texas.

[sevenveils]

Ayman al-Zawahri is now asking people to wage war on his host. His host that has left him virtually alone with his thoughts and army. Now it's time to kick that stinking fish out of the country.

[patriotic9]

Great job Musharraf!!!!
These RADICAL MUSLIM TALIBANS got what they deserved. They were guilty of forcing women to quit prostitution as a prefession just like their RADICAL CHRISTIAN TALIBAN BROTHERS in United States who want to make Prostitution ILLEGAL and force women in United States not to practice their right of choosing it as a profession.

We need MUSHARRAF in United States.

RADICAL CHRISTIAN TALIBANS deserve same fate just like their RADICAL MUSLIM TALIBAN brothers by the hand of MUSHARRAF.

I have a dream today. One day United States will be a country of FREEDOM and DEMOCRACY like Sweden, Denmark, etc. Homosexuals will not be desicriminated on the basis of their SEXUAL ORIENTATION (VIOLATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS), they will be allowed to marry just like the HETEROSEXUAL POPULATION. Women will be allowed to be TOPLESS in public just like men. They won't be thrown into prison in the name of INDECENT EXPOSURE for the same action totally decent for men(GENDER BASED DISCRIMINATION).

World poses great danger in the from RADICAL ISLAM.

We can not defeat RADICAL ISLAM unless we crush and destroy root of RADICAL ISLAM named CHRISTIANITY.

[lars008-2009]

NOW CAN WE KILL THEM???
If they can kill us, we can kill them

Qaeda warns of attacks 'worse than 9/11'
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=070530102648.wuwa6k96&show_article=1

Hizbullah Deputy Sec-Gen Sheikh Naim Qassem: We Have Jurisprudent Permission to Carry Out 'Martyrdom' Operations, Fire Missiles on Israeli Civilians From Ayatollah Khomeini
http://memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SD154907

Switching Sides: Inside The Enemy Camp

But then in 2000, well before his arrest, something happened which would make Abas question everything he believed in: a fatwa, a religious edict, was issued by Osama bin Laden.

"It should be understood that killing Americans and Jews anywhere found are the highest act of worship and the highest form of good deeds in the eyes of Allah," Simon quotes bin Laden.

Abas and his fellow commanders were ordered to read the fatwa to their men and make sure they carried it out. The others obeyed, but Abas refused. It was his moment of truth. He firmly believed that jihad was to be fought only on the battlefield in defense of Islam; he had always been taught that the killing of civilians had nothing to do with holy war and that it was forbidden.

The fatwa justified killing non-Muslim civilians everywhere.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/05/04/60minutes/main2761108.shtml?source=RSSattr=60Minutes_2761108
American Al Qaeda Member Threatens Attack
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/05/29/terror/main2865282.shtml

[susanhelit]

Boy - flashbacks of Waco. A cult based on a religion tries to set itself up as not needing to follow the laws of the government, commits crimes harming the innocent, then when the gov't does what they have to do after negociations fail, people second guess, saying that maybe we could have gone easier on them.

Simple rule in any country at all - if you try to set yourself up as the law, the government isn't going to like it. If you involve other innocents (Waco it was the children, here it was those kidnapped off the street for a violation of the cultists's laws), any decent government will step in and take you out.

[patriotic9]

NOW CAN WE KILL THEM???
Posted by lars008 at 09:37 PM : Jul 11, 2007

Bush answered your question and is killing US troops deployed in Iraq by US TAX DOLLARS and US WEAPONS which he is giving to an IRANIAN BASED ISLAMIC RADICAL "MALIKI" in the name of REBUILDING IRAQ and ARMING IRAQI SECURITY FORCES.

lars

Do you support MULLAH BUSH in the klling of our finest men and women in Iraq by our own tax money and our own weapons?

Do you think HOMOSEXUALS have the right of MARRIAGE just like HETEROSEXUAL CITIZENS or you believe in discriminationg against them just like your fellow ISLAMIC RADICAL BROTHERS and ISLAMIC RADICAL "JESUS"?

Do you think women should have the right to choose ABORTION or you oppose their right just like your fellow ISLAMIC RADICAL BROTHERS especially ISLAMIC RADICAL "JESUS"?

[lars008-2009]

Posted by patriotic9 at 09:55 PM : Jul 11, 2007

name one fascist nazi terrorislam state that grants equal rights to non muslims???

[arabzrfilth]

Shake these filthy apes from the trees, deport them back to the cesspool they came from. They are hateful freaks, sick psychos with no respect for human life. Ugly beak nosed, goat fu(king, a$$ wiping, child raping, woman beating scum of the earth.

[arabzrfilth]

Jabbering yabbering finger wagging fist shaking pub1c hair faced IDIOTS.

NOW CAN WE NUKE THESE MOTHER FU(KING PSYCHOS OFF THE FACE OF OUR EARTH???

[zootallures2]

Shake these filthy apes from the trees, deport them back to the cesspool they came from. They are hateful freaks, sick psychos with no respect for human life. Ugly beak nosed, goat fu(king, a$$ wiping, child raping, woman beating scum of the earth.
Posted by ArabzRfilth at 11:48 PM : Jul 11, 2007

You can sub-divide yourselves till next year. You can go by foot size even. Use what ever fantasy excuse or deversion you want, but it's all humans. Try... HumanzRfilth.

[gunnerv1]

Good, 106 less that we will have to kill somewhere else!

[gunnerv1]

eggy 1620 There can be no compareson between waco and ruby ridge to thes freaks Especially ruby ridge. He was NOT a white supreamist, he was a white seperatist, there is a huge differance.

[lars008-2009]

name one fascist nazi terrorislam state that grants equal rights to non muslims???