Pakistan Islamists vow mosque raid protests

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan braced for a wave of protests by hardline Islamists on Friday, the Muslim day of prayer, a day after President Pervez Musharraf vowed to crush extremism following the deadly Red Mosque raid.   

Military ruler Musharraf sparked fury among radical groups by ordering the army assault on the mosque in central Islamabad which had demanded strict, Taliban-style Islamic law and, according to the government, held human shields.   

The assault killed 11 soldiers and 75 people inside the mosque, most of them militants, although an army spokesman said 19 of the bodies were so badly burned "they could be anybody, any gender, any age."  

"The protest against the operation will not be on Friday alone," vowed Liaquat Baloch, a senior leader of Pakistan's main alliance of fundamentalist parties, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA). "They will continue across the country."   

He vowed that protest rallies and demonstrations would be held nationwide on Friday afternoon and that prayer leaders in their sermons would speak about what happened inside the Red Mosque.   

"The operation was purely political. It was designed to save the uniform of General Musharraf," he said of the leader who seized power eight years ago but faces a political crisis over his suspension of the country's top judge.   

A sombre but unapologetic Musharraf, in a televised address to the nation late on Thursday, called for moderation while pledging to root out Islamic hardliners with better military equipment and training. 

"Extremism and terrorism have not yet been eliminated, and we are determined to root them out from every corner of the country," said the embattled leader, under pressure from both radical religious and pro-democracy groups.   

Musharraf, a key ally in the US-led "war on terror," also said he would beef up security forces along the border with Afghanistan, where Taliban militants are active, giving the troops extra tanks and guns.   

He appealed to the country's 13,000 Islamic schools or madrassas, some of which have been accused of links to international attacks, to "teach the true values of Islam and in their (students') minds take away extremism."   

But the body that runs the country's religious schools, Wafaqul Madaris, also issued a call for a countrywide protest, its leader Qari Hanif Jullandhari told.   

He said that during the eight-day standoff in Islamabad before the military raid, an agreement between the government and the militants had been in the offing when a "new draft from the president's office spoiled the negotiations."   

"We will continue to back Abdul Rashid Ghazi's mission against obscenity, vulgarity and for the enforcement of an Islamic system in the country," he said, referring to the leader of the Red Mosque rebels, who died in the assault.   

Thousands of mourners turned Ghazi's funeral in a central Pakistani village on Thursday into a charged protest against Musharraf.   

Al-Qaeda has urged Pakistanis to declare a holy war on the US-backed government, a call echoed by the Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan and, apparently, heeded by radicals who killed eight people in attacks on Thursday.   

In apparent revenge attacks, a suicide bomber killed three people in the troubled tribal area of North Waziristan, while five died in a roadside blast in northwestern Swat district, which has close links to the mosque.