Explosions Rock Besieged Pakistani Mosque

Gunfire and explosions rocked a besieged radical mosque in Pakistan's capital on Thursday as militants holed up in the complex snubbed a plea from their captured leader to surrender.

Paramilitary troops deployed around the mosque used low intensity explosives and teargas to force the hardliners to lay down their arms, while troops delivered periodic messages over loudspeakers urging militants to surrender, reports CBS News' Farhan Bokhari.

Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao said troops were trying to blast holes in the walls of the fortress-like compound of the mosque and an adjoining seminary for girls.

Soldiers backed by armored vehicles and helicopters surrounded the Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, before dawn on Wednesday, a day after the start of clashes between security forces and radical followers of the mosque that have killed 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 has challenged President Gen. Pervez Musharraf with a drive to impose Taliban-style Islamic law in the city.

The government, keen to avoid a bloodbath that would damage Musharraf's already embattled administration, said it would not storm the mosque so long as women and children remained inside.

However, several explosions rocked the area during a period of intense gunfire before dusk on Thursday, sending a plume of black smoke into the sky.

A leader inside the mosque accused troops of firing several mortar rounds that had 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.

"It's total chaos here. There is smoke everywhere and a fire in the room where we were keeping dead bodies" from earlier skirmishes, he said, coughing repeatedly.

Sherpao insisted no mortars were fired and that the alleged casualties were "just their claims."

The shooting later eased and the smoke cleared.

Officials said they were using helicopters and explosions to shatter the nerves of the mosque defenders and induce 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 extremism and his botched attempt to fire Pakistan's chief justice.

But the cleric's brother, Abdul Rashid Ghazi, remained inside the mosque with followers and said there was no reason to give in.

Ghazi denied claims by officials that he was hiding in a cellar and using young students as human shields. He said all those in the mosque were volunteers.

"Why should we surrender? We are not criminals. How can we force those out who don't want to leave?" Ghazi, the mosque's deputy leader, told AP by telephone.

Qayyum, Ghazi's aide, declined to comment on the statement from Aziz or to describe living conditions inside the mosque, where power and water have been cut off for days.

Deputy Information Minister Tariq Azim said some of the more than 1,100 supporters who had fled the mosque and madrassa told officials that Ghazi had retreated to a cellar along with 20 female "hostages" and that the holdouts had "large quantities of automatic weapons." Officials say they are also armed with hand grenades, explosives and home-made 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 security forces, 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 their students to occupy a library, intimidate storekeepers selling Western music and films and kidnap alleged prostitutes and police as part of a Taliban-style anti-vice campaign.

In his TV interview, the gray-bearded Aziz, still dressed in a burqa, said his mosque has "a relationship of love and affection with all jihadist organizations" but no actual links with them.

"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 over the mosque's loudspeakers for suicide attacks.

Aziz and Ghazi will be put on trial on more than 25 police charges including kidnapping, incitement to murder and arms offenses, officials said, while women, children and males not involved in crimes are 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," said Mehboob Waly, after exiting the mosque to meet his waiting father.

"I came out with a heavy heart. I was scared to be inside but I was also scared to come out," said Mohammed Naveed, a teenager who responded to his mother's anxious message. Like many of the mosque's students, both are from northwest Pakistan, an impoverished breeding ground of radical Islam.

Islamabad remained under curfew on Thursday though authorities relaxed restrictions for two hours to allow people to shop for essential goods, Fokhari reports.

A senior Pakistani official told CBS News it was still not possible to conclude that the standoff was about to be over, in spite of gains made by the troops.

"There are fewer people inside the mosque but they are all hardliners," he said. "The food supplies which exist can now last for much longer because so many people have left."

But another Pakistani official who also spoke on the condition of anonymity told CBS News it was unlikely that the government will let the standoff continue for long.

"You can't let Islamabad continue with curfew for too much longer," he said.