Backers of slain cleric seize shrine
Militants seized control of an Islamic shrine in northwestern Pakistan and renamed it the Red Mosque in support of a pro-Taliban cleric who was killed in an army siege in Islamabad.
About 70 militants overran the shrine of Pashtun freedom fighter Sahib Turangzai and its accompanying mosque in the Mohmand tribal region Sunday, a militant representative and a local official said separately.
The militants evicted the mosque’s caretakers, renamed it and declared support for Abdul Rashid Ghazi, the deputy cleric of the Red Mosque, who was killed July 10, along with more than 100 others in the capital.
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