Pakistan's government give Islamic militants holed up inside a besieged mosque in the capital an imminent deadline to lay down their weapons and surrender, a day after clashes there killed at least nine people. "A bullet will be responded with by a bullet," a minister warns

Jul 4, 2007

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Pakistan's government has given Islamic militants holed up inside a besieged mosque in the capital until 11 am (2 pm (Singapore time) to surrender, a day after clashes there killed at least nine people, the government spokesman said.

"Those who lay down their arms and surrender will not be harmed," Anwar Mahmood, the top official at the Information Ministry he told The Associated Press.

Pakistani troops sealed off the area around a mosque in the capital and imposed a 24-hour curfew on Wednesday after 11 people were killed in clashes between security forces and militant Islamic students.

Violence erupted on Tuesday after a months-long stand-off with a Taliban-style movement headquartered at Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, less than a couple of kilometres (a mile) from parliament and a protected enclave for foreign embassies.

Soldiers moved 12 armoured personnel carriers, mounted with machineguns, into the area as gunfire subsided overnight.

Deputy Interior Minister Zafar Warraich told a news conference that no action would be taken against students who lay down their weapons and surrender, but anyone who tried to fight would be shot.

"A bullet will be responded with by a bullet," he said.

Power was cut off in the neighbourhood, barbed wire at the ends of roads, and journalists were expelled from the area.

"The army is turning back anyone who tries to leave their street, and there is no traffic on the roads," said Reuters correspondent Matiullah Jan, a resident in the curfew zone.

The Interior Ministry said nine people had been killed, but Islamabad hospital officials later said the toll was 11. About 150 people were taken to hospital, 30 with bullet wounds, others suffering from the effects of tear gas.

A soldier and at least four students were among the dead, as well as a television cameraman and people caught in crossfire.

Liberal politicians have pressed President Pervez Musharraf to crack down on Lal Masjid's clerics and their followers, who have threatened suicide attacks if force was used against them.

The religious hardliners have confronted authorities for months, running a vigilante anti-vice campaign and campaigning for observance of strict Islamic law.

Authorities had not used force for fear it could provoke attacks or lead to casualties among female students at a religious school, or madrasa, in the mosque compound.

Clerics acting as intermediaries had held talks with leaders of the student movement and the government overnight, but there was no sign of a break in the deadlock.

"The talks appear to be heading nowhere," Abdul Rashid Ghazi, deputy leader of the students, told Reuters by telephone from inside the mosque. "First they should stop this action and only then there could be any negotiations."

DEFIANCE

Tuesday's clashes began when students attacked a security post at a nearby government office and snatched weapons, police said. The shooting started as paramilitary soldiers fired tear gas to disperse the students.

One of the young women in the mosque's compound was defiant.

"We're nervous but not scared," the madrasa student, Mahira, said by telephone. "Nobody wants to leave. Your faith gets stronger in a situation like this."

She said thousands of people were in the compound. Many women students clad in black, all-enveloping burqas were seen leaving on Tuesday and anxious parents turned up to take children home.

There are 5,000 or so students affiliated with the mosque, and they range in age from teenagers to people in their 30s.

Lal Masjid has a long history of radicalism and support for jihadi causes, but in recent months its student cadre has forced a series of confrontations with the authorities.

Trouble began in January when students occupied a nearby library to protest against the destruction of mosques built illegally on state land. They later kidnapped women, some from China, from alleged brothels. They also abducted police.

Many of the students come from tribal and rural areas of North West Frontier Province, bordering Afghanistan. The Lal Masjid movement is part of a phenomenon dubbed "Talibanisation" by the Pakistani media, referring to the militancy and religious extremism creeping into cities from the frontier region.

The violence comes at a bad time for Musharraf who has been facing a campaign against him by lawyers and the opposition since he suspended the country's top judge in March. He is also preparing for presidential and general elections.

In a country where conspiracy theories abound over the motives and actions of security agencies, many ordinary people fear General Musharraf might use the violence as a pretext for delaying elections due by the end of the year.

(Additional reporting by Sheree Sardar and Zeeshan Haider)

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