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Pakistani politicians hope to meet radical cleric
2007-07-07
Members of Pakistani religious parties hoped to hold talks on Saturday with a radical cleric holed up in an Islamabad mosque and persuade him to send out children among his hundreds of besieged militant followers. Heavy gunfire and explosions rocked the city early on Saturday as militant students in the fortified mosque and Islamic school compound battled security forces after their leader declared he would choose "martyrdom" over surrender. There was a break in the firing by mid-morning and while the delegation of religious leaders had assembled, nobody had gone in or out of the compound. Hundreds of troops have besieged Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, since Tuesday when months of tension erupted into clashes. At least 20 people have been killed. On Saturday, army soldiers were deployed in place of paramilitary troops at many points around the mosque. "We want the government to end this action. We also want the Lal Masjid authorities to stop being so stubborn and hand over the children," said member of parliament Samia Raheel Qazi. The cleric leading the militants, Abdul Rashid Ghazi, rejects government accusations he is holding women and children as human shields. But said he would meet the delegation in his mosque. Ghazi said he and the followers would lay down guns but would never accept arrest. "I fully stand by my position, there's no question of arrests," Ghazi told Reuters early on Saturday, speaking over the crack of rifle fire. He said three students were killed on Friday. Smoke and the orange glow of fire rose from the mosque early on Saturday during a heavy exchange of fire. One member of the security forces was killed, said witnesses who saw the body, although authorities denied any casualties. Water, gas and power to the mosque have been cut and food was said to be getting scarce. About 1,200 students left the mosque after the clashes began but only a trickle of about 20 came out on Friday, among them a boy who said older students were forcing young ones to stay. Officials say they don't know how many are left in there, though they put the number of hard core militants at 50 to 60, while Ghazi has said there are 1,900 students in the compound, and his elder brother, who was captured trying to escape in a burqa in Wednesday, put the number at 850, including 600 females. Authorities say they have blasted holes in the compound's walls to enable people to flee. Security forces have also occupied another city madrasa affiliated with the Lal Masjid. TENSIONS RISE Tensions began rising in January when students, mostly in their 20s and 30s, launched a campaign to impose strict Islamic law and stamp out what they saw as vice. They kidnapped people they accused of prostitution, intimidated shopkeepers selling Western videos, abducted police and threatened suicide attacks if they were suppressed. Moderate politicians and the media had urged President Pervez Musharraf to crack down on the Red Mosque radicals far earlier, and despite the bloodshed newspaper editorials have shown broad support for the decision to finally use force. Reminiscent of the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan, the Red Mosque movement is symptomatic of the religious extremism seeping into Pakistani cities from tribal border areas. Musharraf has not commented publicly on the siege but has urged security agencies to allow time to get children out. On Friday, gunmen fired from a roof-top under the flight path from Islamabad's military airport as Musharraf was flying off to inspect flood damage in the south. An intelligence officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the shots were an attempt on the president's life. The government refused to jump to such conclusions. But, officials privately say the shooter clearly meant to target Musharraf's aircraft, and while the attack appeared amateurish the worrying aspect was that the would-be assassins knew the president was flying that morning. U.S. ally Musharraf survived two assassination attempts by al Qaeda-linked militants in 2003. Adding to a sense of foreboding over risks posed by militants to stability in nuclear-armed Pakistan, a suicide bomber killed six soldiers on Friday in a northwestern region, taking the toll from bomb attacks to 18 people, mostly soldiers since Wednesday. (Additional reporting by Faisal Aziz, Augustine Anthony, Zeeshan Haider)
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