Red Mosque Leader Attempts to Flee in Burka

The leader of a pro-Taliban mosque was captured hiding under a burka as he tried to slip through a tightening siege tonight, while hundreds of his radical followers reportedly surrendered to the Pakistani government.

Maulana Abdul Aziz was discovered by a policewoman as she searched students fleeing Lal Masjid, or the Red Mosque, in central Islamabad, where a two-day showdown with the government has killed 16 people and wounded 150.

Local television showed the bearded preacher being bundled into a police car, his face uncovered over a flowing dark cloak. The government claimed that another 1,000 militants, including many woman students, had also abandoned the mosque, enticed by promises of safe passage and 5,000 rupee (£41) in pocket money.

But the siege has not collapsed. Heavily armed militants - estimated to be between 1,500 and 4,000 in number - remained holed up inside the mosque, vowing to become martyrs and fight to the bitter end. Sporadic gunfire erupted as evening fell.

Abdul Aziz's brother, Maulana Abdul Rashid Ghazi, remains at large, offering to negotiate with the government but saying that talks were "going nowhere".

Lal Masjid shot to public prominence six months ago after indoctrinated students launched an anti-vice campaign that targeted music shop owners and suspected prostitutes in a wealthy Islamabad neighborhood, just a few streets from the diplomatic quarter and the supreme court.

Abdul Aziz, a radical preacher famed for his fiery Friday sermons, was the spiritual leader of the movement, while his brother Ghazi, a university educated cleric who speaks fluent English, emerged as its main spokesman.

The brothers are openly sympathetic to al-Qaida and boast of having met Osama bin Laden, whom Abdul Aziz has compared to the biblical figure of Abraham. They have also boasted of having hundreds of suicide bombers at their disposal.

Their vigilante campaign -- which involved abducting suspected prostitutes and burning pyres of Hollywood movies - severely embarrassed Pakistan's president, General Pervez Musharraf. But he did nothing, saying that a violent showdown could spark countrywide violence.

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.

After an attack on a government checkpoint on Tuesday, the authorities finally hit back. A five-hour gun battle outside the mosque left 16 people dead. Then early today hundreds of soldiers rolled in, cutting off the electricity and imposing strict curfew on the surrounding neighborhood.

Tonight parts of central Islamabad resembled a war zone, with machinegun wielding troops patrolling the streets and helicopter gunships buzzing overhead. The neighborhood around the mosque was isolated by thick coils of barbed wire.

"They have no options but to surrender," said Javed Iqbal Cheema, a government spokesman. "The government is not into dialog with these clerics."

Gen Musharraf seems intent on flushing out as many students as possible before considering a violent assault on the hard core. "The others want to be martyrs. But I don't want to die," said one young man who escaped today.

Pakistan's information minister, Muhammad Ali Durrani, said only "a few hundred" students were left, although most estimates were higher.

Meanwhile hundreds of students made their way home, escorted by relieved relatives. "We are so relieved, my mother is very worried," said Ziauddin, who had traveled 19 hours by bus from Gilgit to retrieve his 20-year-old sister, Qoresha.

The girl, who had just been released from police custody after escaping in an ambulance, was ambivalent about the experience. "Abdul Aziz and his brother are good men. Whether their actions are good or bad, only they can tell," she said from under a black burka.