By IANS
Islamabad/New Delhi : Taking on Islamic radicalism in the very heart of Pakistan's capital, Pakistani security forces stormed the controversial Lal Masjid early Tuesday sparking fierce fighting that killed 60 militants and soldiers and sowing the seeds of more mullah anger against Pervez Musharrraf.
Hundreds of men from the army and Pakistan Rangers launched a cautious but determined assault on the mosque, located close to the headquarters of the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), after hours of conciliatory talks ordered by the Supreme Court collapsed past midnight.
Within hours, the affair turned bloody as an undetermined number of entrenched militants, armed with rockets, assault rifles and machine guns, took on the Pakistani military that for decades had been its allies in the war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and later during Taliban rule.
Many militants got on to the minarets of the mosque and opened fire at the advancing soldiers, who had to fight room by room as they tried to take control of the controversial mosque. By early evening, 70 percent of the complex had fallen to the military.
Military officials had asserted in the morning that they would be able to overcome all resistance within four hours. But more than 13 hours later they were still fighting the mostly male militants, some believed to be foreigners.
Military spokesman, Major General Waheed Arshad, called the militants "terrorists" and said they were "well armed" and "well trained".
"Our eight soldiers have embraced martyrdom while 29 more are wounded," he told reporters here, adding that around 50 militants had been killed so far and dozens injured.
The military was still trying to flush out the militants entrenched in the basements of the huge compound of the Jamia Hafsa seminary, situated adjacent to the Lal Masjid mosque.
There was no word yet about Abdul Rashid Ghazi, the senior most cleric in the mosque who the military says in holed up in one of the basements quarters after holding women and children as human shields.
Gen Arshad claimed that the authorities had rescued 80 students, 50 male and 30 female. Among them were Umme Hassan, the wife of Red Mosque's chief cleric and Ghazi's elder brother, Maulana Abdul Aziz, who was arrested Wednesday in bid to flee disguised as a woman.
But media reports said that when the so-called hostages came out of the mosque, they were chanting slogans "God is great!" — a typical slogan of the militants.
In Pakistan, all major cities were put on high alert to prevent street protests and possible terror attacks.
In the first sign that Islamic radicals could become a long-term headache for Musharraf, hundreds of armed supporters of the Lal Masjid militants blocked the Himalayan Karakorum Highway linking Pakistan to China in the North-West Frontier Province.
Several leaders of the local Taliban militia also joined the rally. But across the country, including in Islamabad where Lal Masjid students had been trying to impose an Islamic way of life, public sentiment in general has been in favour of the government.
Soldiers launched the Tuesday operation after hours-long negotiations between Ghazi and a delegation of religious scholars and ministers broke down early in the morning.
Government officials claimed that the talks failed because Ghazi insisted on guarantees for suspected foreign fighters, although he and his followers were offered a safe exit in return for surrender.
But Ghazi blamed the officials for the breakdown in talks.
"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 to them (negotiators)," Ghazi told Geo news channel.
"We will fight until martyrdom, but the people will take revenge from the rulers," he said defiantly.
The security forces have reportedly cordoned a hospital, giving rise to speculation that they were trying to hide the high number of casualties. But the authorities denied this.
The military deployment at the Lal Masjid began a week ago as the zealot students of the Islamic seminary attacked a police post, escalating the five-month standoff with the authorities over their efforts to strictly enforce Islamic laws in the country.
In New Delhi, Ajay Sahni, director of the Institute for Conflict Management in New Delhi, said: "The Islamist radicals are trying violently to renegotiate the distribution of power and in turn challenge the status quo. This uprising may be put down, but more violence is bound to accompany this action."
The mosque fighting in Islamabad was being closely monitored in neighbouring India, which has been hit hard by decades of Islamist terror that the Lal Masjid has espoused in the name of religion.