More than 50 dead as troops storm Red Mosque
Declan Walsh in Islamabad
Tuesday July 10, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Fears of large-scale casualties at Islamabad's Red Mosque increased this morning as an all-out assault on the compound by Pakistani security forces moved into its ninth hour.
The official death toll stood at 50 militants and eight soldiers, but in a phone call to a local television station, the mosque's chief cleric, Abdul Rashid Ghazi, said there had been "massive bombing and indiscriminate fire" and that there were "dead bodies everywhere".
As frequent loud explosions and occasional bursts of gunfire continued to ring out over the compound - suggesting continued pockets of resistance inside - fleets of ambulances ferried the dead and wounded to local hospitals, where officials said they had treated dozens of injuries.
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The Pakistani military has kept the media away from the mosque compound itself and local journalists expressed their frustration at being denied access to the hospitals treating casualties. A cameraman for an Arab TV station said a member of the security forces had threatened to shoot him if he didn't leave the hospital he was trying to enter immediately.
The operation to break the bloody week-long siege in central Islamabad began at 4am (0000 BST) when special forces breached the mosque walls amid gunfire and explosions. It was anticipated to last for four hours, but at a press conference about five hours after the assault began, the army spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad said 70% of the mosque compound was under the control of security forces, but militants were resisting "using rocket launchers and booby traps".
"Those who surrender will be arrested, but the others will be treated as combatants and killed," he said. "Until the whole area has been sanitised, the operation has not ended."
Some 41 militants had surrendered during the assault, he added.
The attack was led by commandos from the army's special services group - which the president, General Pervez Musharraf, once commanded - supported by thousands of rangers and police.
At 6.50am a large explosion was heard across the city and smoke poured from the mosque roof. Television reports said that three commandos had been killed and nine critically injured.
Fears focused on the unarmed women and children who have been the focus of concern throughout the siege. The government has alleged that up to 450 women and children are being held hostage by a core of about 60 hardened militants leading the fight.
There was much speculation that the militants included foreign fighters with links to al-Qaida and veterans of combat in Afghanistan and Kashmir. Mr Ghazi denied the human shield allegations and claimed that he had many fervent supporters inside the mosque. All preferred to die rather than surrender, he said, and he hoped their deaths would spark an Islamic revolution in Pakistan.
The militants had threatened to defend the compound with mass suicide bombings if attacked, but there were also reports that Mr Ghazi - who sought safe passage for himself and his elderly mother - had been usurped by the militants around him.
This morning Mr Ghazi told Geo TV that his mother had been wounded by gunshot. "The government is using full force. This is naked aggression," he said. "My martyrdom is certain now."
The pre-dawn raid was a risky gambit for Gen Musharraf, who throughout the crisis has had to weigh the benefits of proving his credentials as an anti-extremist leader against the possible domestic backlash in the event of large-scale casualties.
Over the past six months the mosque had become a severe embarrassment to his government as radicalised students abducted suspected prostitutes and defied police as part of a plan to force Sharia law on the residents of the capital.
Late last night there had been hopes that the standoff would reach a peaceful conclusion. A delegation of 12 religious leaders headed by the politician Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain started negotiations with Mr Ghazi, initially using a loudspeaker and then a telephone.
At about midnight Mr Shujaat brought a report on the talks to Gen Musharraf's army camp office in Rawalpindi. Local media reported that Mr Ghazi was prepared to surrender if certain conditions were met, but Gen Musharraf rejected the compromise, according to reports.
The shooting began minutes later, and as Mr Hussein left the area, he said he had "never been so disappointed".
The official death toll since the confrontation erupted last Tuesday is now put at 71.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/pakistan/Story/0,,2122750,00.html
