Asia-Pacific

Mosque leader foresees end of siege

(AP)
Updated: 2007-07-06 00:42

A radical cleric arrested while fleeing his government-besieged mosque in a woman's burqa and high heels said Thursday that the nearly 1,000 followers still inside should flee or surrender.

Pakistan's paramilitary and police officers take away unidentified persons covering their faces in a police van, Thursday, July 5, 2007 near radical Lal masjid on Red mosque in Islamabad, Pakistan. Militants holed up in a radical mosque in the Paksitani capital ignored a plea from their captured leader to surrender to security forces besieging the complex. [AP]

The comments by Maulana Abdul Aziz raised hopes that the standoff could end without further bloodshed, but his brother remained inside the mosque with followers and said there was no reason to surrender.

Gunfire erupted repeatedly around the Red Mosque, or Lal Masjid, as four helicopters hovered overhead. Journalists were barred from entering the area.

At least 16 people, including eight militants, have been killed and scores injured in the standoff between Pakistan's U.S.-backed government and Aziz, who has challenged President Gen. Pervez Musharraf with a drive to impose Taliban-style Islamic law in the city.

The violence in the heart of the capital has added to a sense of crisis in Pakistan, where Musharraf faces emboldened militants near the Afghan border and a pro-democracy movement triggered by his botched attempt to fire the country's chief justice.

The government, eager to avoid a bloodbath that would damage Musharraf's 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 Thursday, sending a plume of black smoke into the sky. Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao said troops were trying to blast holes in the walls of the fortress-like compound.

But 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.

Sherpao insisted no mortars were fired and dismissed the claims of casualties.

Earlier, an Interior Ministry official said that Aziz's brother, Abdul Rashid Ghazi, remained inside the mosque with an estimated 30 die-hard supporters. Intelligence officials said there could be as many as 100.

The official, Javed Iqbal Cheema, said Ghazi was using women and children as "human shields," something which Ghazi denied in a telephone interview with The Associated Press.

"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, said by telephone.

Deputy Information Minister Tariq Azim said some of the more than 1,100 supporters who had fled the mosque and an adjoining girls' madrassa told them that Ghazi had retreated to a cellar along with 20 female "hostages" and that the holdouts had "large quantities of automatic weapons."

Azim said there would be no more negotiations with Ghazi. "Enough time has already been wasted. It has to be total, unconditional surrender," he said.

Aziz was nabbed Wednesday evening after a female police officer checking women fleeing the mosque tried to search his body, which was concealed by a full-length black burqa. Azim, the deputy information minister, said the cleric had also been wearing high-heeled shoes.

In an interview with state-run Pakistan Television after his arrest, the gray-bearded Aziz, still dressed in a burqa, appeared calm as he 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," said Aziz, denying responsibility for calls Tuesday over the mosque's loudspeakers for suicide attacks.

"If they can get out quietly they should go, or they can surrender if they want to," Aziz said, referring to those remaining inside the compound. "I saw after coming out that the siege is very intense. ... Our companions will not be able to stay for long."

Security forces were sent to the mosque after the kidnapping of six Chinese women alleged to be prostitutes, a brief abduction that drew a protest from Beijing and proved to be the last straw in a string of provocations by the mosque stretching back six months.

Militant students streamed out of the mosque to confront the government forces, leading to a daylong battle on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, the Pakistani army surrounded the mosque, determined to end the actions by the clerics and students. Officials said over 1,100 militants had given up and more emerged early Thursday as police using loudspeakers urged the hold-outs to surrender.

Aziz and Ghazi are named in more than 20 police cases, including involvement in terrorism and fleeing justice, said police official Akhtar Nawaz. But the two, who are brothers, have not yet been charged.

"They have no options but to surrender," Cheema said. "The government is not into dialogue with these clerics."

All women and children will be granted amnesty, but males involved in killings and other crimes as well as top mosque leaders will face legal action, said Deputy Information Minister Tariq Azim.