40 Muslim extremists held in Pakistan

Pakistani security forces Sunday detained about 40 religious extremists in Islamabad, where two policemen were being held hostage in a mosque by hard-line clerics and students.

Inside the compound of the Laal Masjid, or Red Mosque, the cleric leading the student movement issued defiant statements from a loudspeaker, while his followers waved wooden sticks from the walls and rooftops.

“We are ready to fight, we are ready to die, but we will not back down,” Maulana Abdul Aziz cried out, as the students responded with chants of “Jihad!”

The Muslim radicals were detained in different parts of the city, away from the mosque, said Deputy Commissioner Chaudhry Mohammed Ali, a senior administrator in the capital. He described the detentions as a preventive measure.

“We have completed our preparations and once we get the go-ahead from higher-ups we will launch a crackdown,” Ali told journalists, as police blocked the streets surrounding the mosque in the heart of the normally sedate capital.

Students had spread rocks and steel rods across the road leading to the mosque, in anticipation of a raid that the government appeared reluctant to order, because the compound also houses a school for girls.

The mosque has been at odds with the authorities since January, when female students occupied an adjacent library to protest the destruction of several mosques illegally constructed on state-owned land.

Students had snatched four plainclothes police Friday and demanded that the authorities release 11 comrades. Two of the police officers were later released.

Liberals have been disturbed by the government’s failure to act against religious radicals in the face of what some are calling a trend of “Talibanization” in Pakistan.