Pakistani troops storm radical mosque; 43 die

Government forces stormed the radical Red Mosque before dawn today to try to rescue hostages inside, leaving at least 40 Islamic militants and three troops dead, authorities said.

About two dozen children were brought to safety as the Pakistani commandos rushed the compound from three directions, but the fates of other hostages believed to have been seized in the course of a weeklong standoff was not immediately known.

Over recent days, amid reports that dozens of people were being held in the mosque against their will, Pakistani troops had been blasting holes in the compound walls to give them an opportunity to escape.

During the hours-long assault, white smoke billowed from the mosque compound as explosions and volleys of gunfire rang out. Dozens of ambulances raced to the scene, and emergency workers and the frantic parents of some of the students at the mosque complex milled behind an army cordon.

Pakistani officials told journalists, who were kept at a distance from the fighting, that the militants inside the compound fought back with assault rifles, homemade gasoline bombs and grenades.

Army spokesman Gen. Waheed Arshad described the resistance from those inside as “tough.” Even before troops stormed the compound, the confrontation had claimed about two dozen lives since it began July 3.

Last-ditch talks

The assault began shortly after the breakdown of what had been described as last-ditch negotiations conducted by a delegation of senior clerics and politicians. The negotiators gave up their effort to bring about a peaceful resolution shortly before midnight.

The initial wave of troops was able to clear the ground floor of the mosque quickly. But the large compound, spreading over several city blocks in what had been a quiet residential neighborhood, had many other areas that could be used as hiding places or staging grounds for a counterattack.

Arshad said defenders who put down their arms were being given the chance to surrender. “But the others will be treated as combatants and killed,” he told reporters.

The violence at the mosque erupted a week ago when gunfire broke out. The next day, troops with armored vehicles and helicopters lay siege to the complex.

But the confrontation had been brewing long before that.

For the last several months, two radical clerics at the mosque and their followers had engaged in increasingly brazen challenges to the government.

Male and female students at the mosque’s two madrasas, or seminaries, had mounted a vigilante-style drive to impose strict Islamic rules on Islamabad, Pakistan’s relatively cosmopolitan capital. They kidnapped police officers and alleged prostitutes and menaced the owners of video stores and music shops.

Many of the students inside at the start of the standoff were as young as 13 or 14, and hundreds of youngsters were among a group of about 1,200 who gave themselves up during the first days of the siege.

It was unclear what result the mosque standoff would have on Pakistan’s already roiling political scene. President Pervez Musharraf was criticized by some for being slow to crack down on the militants.

But once the standoff began, public sentiment seemed to favor his strategy of holding off on a full-scale assault while attempts were made to bring out women and children inside, and to give those who wanted to surrender a chance to do so.

The crisis also deflected attention from a pro-democracy movement that has blossomed in recent months after Musharraf’s efforts to push aside the country’s reform-minded chief justice. That sparked enormous street protests and calls for the ouster of the general, who seized power eight years ago.

Staunch ally in U.S.

Musharraf’s chief ally, the United States, has stood by him through the crisis, generating some anti-American feelings among those Pakistanis who are pushing for free elections and urging the president to relinquish his post as army chief.

Pakistan is a key U.S. ally in the war in Afghanistan, and its status as a nuclear-armed nation gives greater weight to the outcome of its political turmoil.

Musharraf’s government has been challenged by Islamic militant groups that operate in Pakistan’s largely ungoverned tribal areas. The president has come under pressure to move against Taliban and Al Qaeda militants who use the borderlands as a sanctuary.

The Red Mosque standoff was alarming to many Pakistanis because it was the first confrontation of its kind in the capital, representing for some a “seepage” of militancy from the hinterlands into urban areas.

Authorities said earlier in the mosque siege that known members of some domestic militant groups were believed to be among the hard-core holdouts.

The mosque’s head cleric, Abdul Rashid Ghazi, spoke to the private GEO television after the assault began, saying his followers were vastly outnumbered and outgunned by security forces.

“My martyrdom is certain now,” he said.

Ghazi took over as head cleric after his brother, Abdul Aziz, was caught trying to slip out of the compound disguised as a woman, along with hundreds of others on the second day of the siege. The government forced him to appear on television in the burka, or head-to-toe covering, that he wore trying to escape, and newspapers mocked him as “Auntie” Aziz.

In recent days, Pakistani officials suggested that Ghazi no longer wielded control, and that militant leaders were giving the orders inside the mosque.

king@latimes.com

Special correspondent Zaidi reported from Islamabad and Times staff writer King from Istanbul, Turkey.