ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - A radical cleric whose besieged mosque sought to impose strict Islamic morality on the Pakistani capital was killed Tuesday after refusing to respond to troops who demanded his surrender, officials said.

In this undated photo released on Tuesday, July 10, 2007 by the Inter Services Public Relations, shown is an aerial view of the Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque complex in Islamabad, Pakistan. Pakistani troops attempted to flush out holdouts entrenched inside a women's religious school after raiding Islamabad's Red Mosque in fierce fighting Tuesday that left about 50 militants and eight soldiers dead, the army said. The photo was not related to the recent siege of the mosque. [AP]

About 50 militants and eight soldiers died when the military stormed the sprawling Red Mosque compound.

Abdul Rashid Ghazi, the public face of the pro-Taliban mosque that challenged the government's writ in Islamabad, had vowed to die rather than give himself up.

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.

Officials, who earlier said the military held back on an all-out assault on Ghazi because there were children being held in the basement as hostages, offered no details on who was with him when he died.

"The government is using full force. This is naked aggression," Ghazi said hours before his death. "My martyrdom is certain now."

Troops had stormed the sprawling mosque compound in the capital before dawn after efforts to bring a peaceful end to a weeklong standoff with security forces failed.

Ghazi and his brother Abdul Aziz, the mosque's chief cleric, 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.

Khalid Pervez, the city's top administrator, said as many as 50 women were the first to be freed by the militants and had emerged from the complex following the escape of 26 children.

Mohammed Khalid Jamil, a reporter for the local Aaj television network, was among journalists who said they saw dozens of women and girls walking on a road away from the mosque. They were wearing burqas, he said.

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