New clashes at Pakistan mosque despite surrender call

ISLAMABAD: Fresh clashes erupted at Pakistan's besieged Red Mosque on Thursday, where "terrorists" were said to be holding women and children as human shields despite calls from its captured leader to surrender.   

Firebrand cleric Abdul Aziz, who was seized on Wednesday trying to flee the complex in a burqa, said in a bizarre television interview wearing one of the garments that about 1,000 male and female students remained inside.   

The pro-Taliban mosque has been under siege by troops and police since Tuesday when fierce street battles between its hardline devotees and security forces in the heart of the capital left at least 16 people dead.   

"After coming out I saw the siege was massive and came to the conclusion that we should give up," he told state television. "The government has massive resources and I realised that people will not be able to stay inside for long."   

Aziz appeared in a black burqa under which his bush grey beard was partly visible. The interviewer asked him to take off the veil, which he then lifted to show his face -- and a bemused smile.   

The cleric later appeared in court charged with plotting terrorist attacks and kidnapping people, including seven Chinese nationals abducted by his students from an acupuncture clinic for allegedly running a brothel.   

He was later remanded in custody.  His brother, deputy mosque leader Abdul Rashid Ghazi remained holed up in the mosque. He refused to leave, adding: "We are not terrorists, so why should we lay down our arms?"   

The tense standoff erupted in the afternoon in some of the heaviest clashes yet, with students opening fire on troops and hurling hand grenades, chief military spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad said.   

US-built helicopter gunships flew low over the building. Security forces arrested eight "hardcore" militants who tried to escape during the clash, some of whom were blindfolded and told to take off their shirts following claims by the mosque that it had a squad of suicide bombers.   

Earlier in the day troops blew up most of the wall surrounding the mosque and smashed in one of its doors with an armoured personnel carrier, witnesses said.   

Religious affairs minister Ijaz-ul Haq said 30 "armed terrorists" were stopping others from leaving. The extremists were "using women and children as human shields," Islamabad administration chief Khalid Pervez said.   

President Pervez Musharraf, a key US ally, had however ordered security chiefs not to raid the mosque yet to avoid casualties among women and children, a top government official told. "That is delaying the final push against the compound," he added.   

Ghazi and Aziz both denied that anyone was being kept against their will. The mosque has two schools for male and female students attached to its compound in a leafy Islamabad neighbourhood and officials. Students range in age from pre-teens to their early 20s.   

At least 50 students left the mosque on Thursday and were herded on to buses by police, but it was a trickle compared with Wednesday's exodus when about 1,200 fled.   

The "rotten" body of a student killed in earlier clashes was brought out of the mosque Thursday and more were believed to be inside, a doctor at the state-run Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences told.   

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown earlier telephoned Musharraf on Thursday to praise his efforts to curb militancy and terrorism, an official Pakistani statement said.   

Sources said the mosque crisis featured in the discussion.    Musharraf, who is already facing a political crisis ahead of elections later this year after ousting the country's chief justice, ordered the crackdown after the mosque tried to set up a Taliban-style justice system.   

It has led a freelance morality campaign in Islamabad included the abduction of police officers and people accused of running brothels -- including the seven Chinese -- as well as raids on music and DVD shops.   

Friction with the Red Mosque began in January when its female students took over a government-run children's library. In April the clerics set up an Islamic court that issued a "fatwa" or religious decree against a paragliding female minister.