Nearly 60 Dead in Red Mosque Raid

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistani troops were flushing out holdouts entrenched inside a women’s religious school, taking control of the sprawling Red Mosque room by room in fighting that left about 50 militants and eight soldiers dead, the army said.Commandos stormed the sprawling mosque compound before dawn. Twelve hours later, the army said the complex was 80% cleared of militants but it was still trying to root out well-armed defenders the government accuses of holding a number of hostages. A local relief agency said the army asked for 400 white funeral shrouds.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 mosque.The city’s top administrator, Khalid Pervez, 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.A reporter for the local Aaj television network, Mohammed Khalid Jamil, 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.A military official who demanded his name be withheld because he was not authorized to speak to the press, said the women included the wife and daughter of Abdul Aziz, the former head of the mosque who was arrested while trying to flee the complex last week.It was not clear how many noncombatants were being held hostage or were staying behind because they believed in the mosque’s cause. Last week, a number of those who left the mosque, including young women, said their colleagues were there of their own free will and prepared to die.An army spokesman, Major General Waheed Arshad, said hostages were still being held and that fighting was intense: “We are fighting room by room.” He added that stun grenades were being used to avoid casualties among the hostages.The head of the private relief agency Edhi Foundation, Abdul Sattar Edhi, told reporters that the army had asked him to prepare 400 white shrouds used for covering the dead.The siege of one of the capital’s most prominent mosques was prompted by clashes last Tuesday between security forces and supporters of the mosque’s hardline clerics. More than 80 people have been killed in the fighting since July 3.The vigilante anti-vice campaign has proved an embarrassment to President Musharraf, a key American ally in its war on terror, and underlined his administration’s failure to control extremist religious schools.But a major loss of life at the Red Mosque could further turn public opinion against the president, who already faces mounting opposition for his bungled attempts to fire the country’s chief justice.Mr. Arshad said about 50 militants have been killed in Tuesday’s assault, while eight soldiers had died and 29 were wounded.To protest the siege, more than 100 armed tribesmen and religious students near the northwestern town of Batagram temporarily blocked a road that leads to neighboring China, police officials said.And in the eastern city of Multan, more than 500 Islamic religious school students rallied, chanting “Down with Musharraf” and blocking a main road by burning tires.The American Embassy recommended that Americans in Pakistan limit their movement in the area of the northwestern city of Peshawar, warning that “terrorist elements” were threatening attacks on Pakistani government, police and army institutions in retaliation for the Red Mosque siege.After efforts to negotiate a surrender failed, commandos attacked from three directions about 4 a.m. and quickly cleared the ground floor of the mosque, Mr. Arshad said. Some 20 children who rushed toward the advancing troops were brought to safety, he said.Besides the women, Mr. Arshad said about 50 suspected militants, some of them youngsters, have been captured or emerged from the mosque since fighting began Tuesday.Mr. Arshad said the army attack was now focused on the women’s school but that some militants were still firing from the tops of the mosque’s minarets. He said the entire compound included 75 rooms, large basements and expansive courtyards.An officer, who demanded anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press, said troops had cornered the mosque’s chief cleric, Abdul Rashid Ghazi, in the basement of the school but held back from an all-out assault because a number of children were being held there as hostages.Troops demanded four times that he surrender, but his followers responded with gunfire, and Mr. Ghazi said he was ready to die rather than give up, the officer said.Mr. Arshad said the well-trained militants were armed with machine guns, rocket launchers and gasoline bombs and had booby-trapped some areas.“Those who surrender will be arrested, but the others will be treated as combatants and killed,” he said.Pakistan’s Religious Affairs Minister Mohammed Ijaz ul-Haq said foreign militants were among those fighting with the mosque defenders, quoting Mr. Ghazi.Mr. Ghazi told the private Geo TV network in a telephone interview about two hours after Tuesday’s assault began that his mother had been wounded by gunshot. One of Mr. Ghazi’s aides, Abdul Rahman, later said she had died.“The government is using full force. This is naked aggression,” he said. “My martyrdom is certain now.”

Nearly 60 Dead in Red Mosque Raid

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