By IANS
Islamabad : Pakistani security forces finally stormed the besieged Lal Masjid here early Tuesday sparking fierce fighting that killed at least 50 militants and eight soldiers after last minute talks failed to end the week-long crisis.
Military authorities said they were mopping up the mosque complex in the heart of the capital after capturing 70 percent of it, clearing room by room, but were yet to overpower an undetermined number of heavily armed Islamic radicals holed up inside.
The storming, codenamed "Operation Silence", started at 4 a.m. with tanks moving towards the complex after 11 hours of talks between the government and the Lal Masjid clerics ordered by the Supreme Court collapsed, media outlets reported.
Major General Waheed Arshad, director general of the Inter Services Public Relations, told reporters that the pre-dawn assault led to the death of at least 50 militants armed with machine guns, assault rifles, rockets and grenades.
"They are well armed, they are well trained," he said, explaining the reason why the military was struggling to take control of the sprawling complex where armed confrontation with the security personnel erupted a week ago, posing the biggest political challenge to President Pervez Musharraf since he seized power in 1999.
Gen Arshad said the northern part of the mosque had been cleared and fighting was concentrated in the southern end, close to a women's seminary. "Dense fighting is going on," he said.
"There is intense engagement from the militants in the ground and first floors. They have also occupied the minarets of the mosque. They have turned the mosque into a trench."
Military officials said eight soldiers, including those from the elite Special Forces, were also killed.
Even as fighting raged, there was no information if the deputy chief cleric of Lal Masjid, Abdul Rashid Ghazi, who vowed to die but never to give up, had been captured or killed. His brother was earlier arrested trying to flee the mosque dressed like a woman in burqa.
A close associate of the holed up Ghazi insisted that the cleric was willing to surrender to the authorities but that the religious alliance of Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) had sabotaged the efforts, leading to the pre-dawn storming.
"Ghazi had accepted the government demand and was willing to relocate but certain elements of MMA sabotaged the talks," said Abdul Rehman, who is also a member of Lal Masjid administration. "The operation was conducted on the excuse that some foreign militants are present inside (the mosque)."
Denying this, Ghazi had invited journalists and clerics to come to the mosque and see the situation for themselves but the government refused the offer, the aide told a TV channel. He said that Ghazi's mother was killed in the firing.
Television footage after the start of the operation showed smoke billowing from the mosque compound. Several dozen heavy blasts were heard at the scene, presumably carried out by security forces to demolish sections of the boundary wall of the heavily fortified compound.
Military officials admitted the mosque had been partially damaged due to the fighting.
Ghazi remained defiant during early hours of heavy fighting, keeping in touch with journalists on telephone.
"This is my last chance to say anything, and I would like to say that we fought with courage. We were asked to bow before power, but we refused to do so," Ghazi told Aaj news channel.
"We will fight till martyrdom, but the people will take revenge from the rulers.
I offered surrender in the presence of media so that the entire world could see what sort of weapons we had and that was my last words with them (negotiators)."
Ghazi telephoned a TV channel and said: "Commandos have reached my room." Telephone contact was lost immediately afterwards.
At least 50 of the militants were captured and 20 screaming children fled to safety as heavy fighting erupted early in the morning. Twenty-seven women were also rescued.
Media personnel were not allowed to go near the complex for "their own safety as the area is not safe, still heavy resistance is going on", Arshad said.
Pakistani troops have taken control of all hospitals in Islamabad and in the nearby garrison city of Rawalpindi.
"We have been asked to leave the hospitals with a warning that they will shoot anyone trying to enter the vicinity," a reporter said from the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences.