Six people killed in Pakistan mosque clashesLal Masjid clash

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Islamabad, July 03, 2007

At least six people, including a paramilitary trooper and a television cameraman, were killed in gunfire during clashes with militant students at a mosque run by a Taliban-style movement in Islamabad on Tuesday, officials said.

A cleric inside Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, told Reuters eight students had been killed in exchanges of fire, and a loudspeaker in the compound broadcast a message calling on followers of the movement to begin suicide attacks.

The clashes began when about 150 students attacked a security picket at a Pakistani government office near the mosque, snatched weapons and took four officials hostage, according to police.

Paramilitary forces fired teargas to disperse hundreds of students outside the mosque, and came under fire from automatic weapons.

Authorities have been locked in a tense stand-off for months with the students, who want to impose Taliban-style social values in the Pakistani capital.

A senior Interior Ministry official speaking on condition of anonymity confirmed that aside from the trooper, three students were killed during the shooting as well as a television cameraman and a passer-by. He said 83 people were wounded, most believed suffering from the effects of teargas.

A deputy leader of the student movement, Abdul Rashid Ghazi, told Reuters: "They are behaving brutally. So far eight of our students have been killed."

Students set alight part of a building housing the Environment Ministry along with dozens of cars in the parking lot, and stoned other government offices, breaking windows.

As the firing continued over several hours the call for suicide attacks was issued over a loudspeaker. "We had asked to stop the firing 10 minutes ago, but as the firing continues we are calling for suicide attacks."

The government said it wanted talks.

"Despite unprovoked firing by the students of Lal Masjid, the government still wants to settle the issue through dialogue," Deputy Interior Minister Zafar Iqbal Warraich told state-run Pakistan Television.

Despite the shooting, students carrying staves remained on the street outside the mosque. Burqa-clad women stood on the rooftops of an adjacent madrasa, or Islamist school, shouting anti-government slogans, while some men were seen brandishing Kalashnikov rifles.

"Kill us"

"Kill us. We will die but we will not back off from our demands to enforce Islamic Sharia," Mahira, one of the female students, told Reuters by telephone.

Troops occupied buildings overlooking the sprawling mosque complex, which also houses a madrasa, while police armed with batons lined up and ambulances parked in nearby streets.

Scores of men, women and children living in the neighbourhood also came out on the streets shouting support for the students, and calling on the government to stop the firing.

The Red Mosque has long been known as a hotbed of Islamic radicalism. Trouble began in January when female students attached to the mosque occupied a library next to their madrasa to protest destruction of mosques built illegally on state land.

The government has hitherto refrained from using force, out of fear it could provoke threatened suicide attacks.

Concern over potential casualties among female students had also stayed the government's hand. There are some 5,000 students at the madrasas affiliated to Lal Masjid.
Last Friday, President Pervez Musharraf said suicide bombers from an Al-Qaeda-linked militant group, Jaish-e-Mohammad, were holed up in the mosque.

Musharraf, who has survived two Al-Qaeda-inspired assassination attempts, said the government had tried to negotiate, but was ready to take action.