Jaish fires up Islamabad

Lal Masjid, located next to ISI HQ, shows the gun to Musharraf

ISLAMABAD: After months of playing cat and mouse with each other, Pakistani security forces finally clashed on Tuesday with the extremist students of the Lal Masjid and its adjacent Jamia Hafsa seminary located in the heart of Islamabad, leaving at least a dozen dead from both sides besides inflicting injuries to over 100 others.

According to Islamabad police sources, those killed during the Tuesday clash include members of the security forces including the Rangers and the Police, students of the Lal Masjid and the Jamia Hafsa, media people, passer bys as well as a businessman.

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The fanatic clerics running the Lal Masjid who have declared jehad against the Musharraf regime, have claimed that at least one dozen male students of the Lal Masjid have expired at the Islamabad Polytechnic Institute after sustaining bullet injuries while over 50 female students of the Jamia Hafsa seminary have been left injured due to heavy tear gassing and firing by the security forces.

Students carrying Kalashnikovs and wearing gas masks took up positions behind sandbags and dirt bunkers chanting “Jehad! Jehad”, as police in riot vans fired volleys of tear gas. Contacts in the jehadi circles said there will be a reaction all over the country as more than 1,000 jehadis were already on their way to the federal capital.

The Lal Masjid was surrounded last week by the security forces in the aftermath of intelligence reports that the Mosque and the administration of the adjacent religious school have called in suicide-bombers from Waziristan to target important personalities in Islamabad.

General Musharraf had stated on June 29, 2007 that an operation could be launched against the Lal Masjid and Jamia Hafsa brigade, but a raid would lead to heavy casualties on both sides because a large number of suicide bombers were inside the mosque and the seminary.

Musharraf had further conceded that militants having links with Jaish-e-Mohammad were hiding in the Lal Masjid and they had explosives to launch suicide attacks.