Pakistani Army Seals Off Radical Mosque After Day of Violence

The Pakistani army tightened the siege of a radical mosque in central Islamabad this morning after 24 hours of gun violence that has left 12 people dead and 150 injured.

Early this morning soldiers in armored vehicles encircled the Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, cutting off electricity and imposing a shoot-on-sight curfew on the surrounding streets.

By 1pm local time (8am GMT) it was reported that around 500 mosque followers, many of them young female students, surrendered, accepting an offer of a 5,000 rupee (£41) payment and safe passage as a government deadline expired.

But several thousand heavily armed militants remained holed up inside, led by defiant pro-Taliban preachers who brushed aside several government ultimatums.

"The talks appear to be heading nowhere," Abdul Rashid Ghazi, one of two radical brothers who lead the mosque, told Reuters news agency by phone.

The dramatic siege is the culmination of months of simmering tension between authorities and the radical students, whose anti-vice campaign - including kidnapping alleged prostitutes and burning films - has embarrassed the president, General Pervez Musharraf.

The final straw may have been the abduction of seven Chinese employees of a massage parlour, which the militants termed a brothel, last week. The Chinese were released within hours but their government - a key ally of Pakistan - demanded greater security.

The showdown started yesterday after a clash at a security check post outside the mosque triggered a five-hour gun battle in the surrounding streets.

Masked students hid behind sandbags on the mosque roof, firing at police and rangers in the surrounding streets. Security forces returned a barrage of bullets and tear-gas shells. From the mosque loudspeaker a voice urged students to prepare for suicide bombings.

Hospital officials confirmed 12 people dead including at least four students, several civilians, a soldier, and a journalist. Mosque authorities claimed a higher toll.

The violence rocked Islamabad, a normally peaceful city where residents joke about its dullness. The area around the mosque, situated near the supreme court and diplomatic district, turned into a war zone. Volleys of bullets whipped through the trees, lines of soldiers scurried through alleyways and at least three journalists were wounded in the crossfire.

A thick plume of smoke rose in the sky after students torched two nearby government buildings, including the ministry of the environment, and set cars ablaze. They also ransacked a girls' school.

A black flag depicting two crossed swords and a verse from the Qur'an - similar to the Taliban standard - fluttered from the mosque rooftop. Inside, young men brandished rifles and pistols and some wore gas masks. Burka-clad female students huddled in prayer, some apparently preparing for martyrdom.

Unusually, a woman led prayers in the main mosque, a red-walled building with a white dome. She called on "the angels" to help them defeat Gen Musharraf. Other terrified young students fled for safety, some rescued by relatives. "We sent her to Lal Masjid for an education," said one woman preparing to dash inside to fetch her 20-year-old sister. "We do not like terrorism. We are for peace."

A temporary ceasefire brokered by a conservative parliamentarian yesterday evening collapsed after nightfall. After midnight a column of armoured army vehicles trundled out of the national stadium and towards the mosque.

As soldiers closed off the neighborhood around the mosque, officers on loudhailers warned all women and children to leave. The press was pushed back because Gen Musharraf fears television coverage of soldiers attacking the mosque could incite more violence across the country.

Pro-mosque demonstrations erupted in the western city of Quetta and the remote Swat Valley, while a suicide bomber in Waziristan killed several people.

This morning several government deadlines passed as hardline clerics acting as intermediaries tried to broker a peace deal. Parents of some of the students at the mosque arrived from rural areas desperately seeking news of their children.

Officials estimate that between 2,000 and 5,000 students remain inside the mosque.

The government strategy appears to be to flush out as many of them as possible, especially the women, before an assault on the remaining hardcore.

At a midnight press conference last night the deputy interior minister, Zafar Waraich, warned that those who resist with weapons will be "answered with bullets".

Abdul Rashid Ghazi, one of the two brothers who run Lal Masjid, changed his tone from conciliation early yesterday to obduracy today. One of his female students, Mahira, said in a telephone interview: "Nobody wants to leave. Your faith gets stronger in a situation like this."

As bullets whizzed through the streets around the mosque yesterday, opinions were divided among passersby. One young man said the president deserved to be ousted. "Musharraf, dog!" he said in broken English, making a woofing noise.

But Shahid Hayat, a 20-year-old business student, supported the military leader. "This is not good, it is hurting our country's reputation," he said. "It's hurting Islam."

A government official described the mosque as a "cult" and said that decisive army action might be necessary to avoid a "Waco-style" siege - a reference to the death of 78 people in Texas in 1993.