Pakistan Tries Talks To End Mosque Siege

Pakistan's government sent a delegation led by a former prime minister Monday to the besieged Red Mosque in an attempt to negotiate an end to the seven-day standoff in the capital, a senior official said.

Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao said the delegation, including former premier Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and several religious leaders, would address mosque leader Abdul Rashid Ghazi using loudspeakers.

"The delegation of religious scholars will talk to (Abdul) Rashid Ghazi and try to convince him" to give up, Sherpao said on state-run Pakistan Television. "It is too risky to go inside."

He didn't say what incentives the negotiators would offer to Ghazi, who officials say is holed up in the mosque with dozens of armed militants as well as about 150 hostages.

Ghazi says he and his followers prefer martyrdom to surrender.

The decision to give negotiations rather than an all-out assault a chance to work came after President Gen. Pervez Musharraf held a high-level meeting on how to resolve the crisis.

Security officials, who demanded anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media, said among the mediators would be Taqi Usmani, one of Ghazi's former teachers.

Some clerics, including Usmani, had earlier attempted without success to persuade Ghazi to end the siege peacefully. The government claims the mosque is being defended by wanted terrorists.

A group of about 20 lawmakers from radical religious parties were stopped by soldiers from approaching the mosque as intense gunfire again erupted in the area mid-afternoon. The group was attempting to also act as mediators.

A mosque spokesman, meanwhile, claimed hundreds of men and women died in a military assault on the mosque and adjoining Islamic school.

It was impossible to verify this or the claim of terrorist involvement in the escalating battle of gunfire and rhetoric between the government and the defenders of the mosque.

Musharraf sent in troops last Wednesday, a day after supporters of the mosque's radical clerics fought gun battles with security forces sent to contain their campaign to impose Taliban-style rule in the capital.

At least 24 people have died so far, including a special forces commando shot as the military blasted holes in the walls of the fortified compound. Officials said they hoped young students allegedly being held hostage in the mosque could use the gaps to escape.

The siege sparked an anti-government protest Monday by some 20,000 tribesmen, including hundreds of masked militants wielding assault rifles, in the northwest region of Bajur.

Many chanted "Death to Musharraf" and "Death to America" in a rally led by Maulana Faqir Mohammed, a cleric wanted by authorities and who is believed to be a close lieutenant of al Qaeda no. 2 leader Ayman al-Zawahri.

"All of Musharraf's policies are against Islam and the country; therefore he has become our enemy. He will not be spared and revenge will be taken against him for these atrocities," he said.

"Innocent scholars and students are being martyred, mosques are being ruined only to please America," he said.

Religious Affairs Minister Ejaz ul-Haq said terrorists, including a suspect in a plot against Pakistan's prime minister, were in control of the mosque.

"I can only tell you they are involved in many terrorist activities inside and outside" Pakistan, ul-Haq said. "And there are a few who are very renowned, very well known, more well known than al Qaeda and the Taliban."

Ul-Haq provided no details. However, Musharraf has said members of Jaish-e-Mohammed, a radical group involved in fighting Indian rule in Kashmir and with links to al Qaeda, was involved.

A military official who said he was not allowed to speak on the record said intercepts of telephone calls from the mosque indicated the defenders also had links to Harkat Jihad-e-Islami.

Some members of Harkat have been suspected of involvement in the killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in Karachi in 2002, and in a bombing the same year in the city that killed 11 French engineers.

"The very fact that they can use heavy automatic weapons with some expertise shows that they are not just ordinary 14-, 15-year-old students," government spokesman Tariq Azim said.

The government has repeatedly said it will only accept the unconditional surrender of the mosque defenders and that Ghazi would have to face the courts.