ISLAMABAD, 9 July 2007 — Pakistani authorities issued a “last warning” yesterday to all those holed up in the Red Mosque, as speculation mounted that security forces were set to launch a full-scale assault.
“This is the last warning for you to surrender,” authorities said over loudspeakers outside the mosque, a resident who heard the announcement said.
President Pervez Musharraf on Saturday gave the militants a “surrender-or-die” ultimatum. He met top security officials yesterday evening.
“The final round has begun. There’s a possibility,” a government official said when asked if an assault was imminent.
A senior army officer was killed and his deputy seriously injured in an earlier operation to blast holes in the wall of the mosque compound, officials said.
Al-Qaeda-linked rebels including foreigners had seized control and may start killing hostages, a government minister said. Religious Affairs Minister Ejaz ul-Haq said the government believed the mosque’s firebrand deputy leader, Abdul Rashid Ghazi, had effectively been deposed by the extremists.
“Ghazi is no longer in control. The hardcore militants are in control of the mosque,” Haq told AFP. “Our fear is that they may start killing the women and children to press for their demand for safe passage.” Haq said that inside the mosque there were “terrorists who are wanted within and outside Pakistan. These terrorists have links with Arab countries.” One or two militants from Uzbekistan were also involved, he said.
Militants inside the fortress-like mosque opened fire on the army forces, wounding the two officers, army spokesman Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad said. Lt. Col. Haroon Islam later died in hospital, bringing the death toll in the siege to at least 24.
Col. Haroon was from Zarar Company of the Anti-Terrorist Squadron from the Special Services Group.
Maj. Tariq was identified as the injured officer. He is recovering at the Combined Military Hospital in Rawalpindi.
President Musharraf, who himself served in the SSG, attended the funeral prayer of Haroon at the Chaklala Air Base before his remains were flown to his home city of Lahore for burial.
Thousands of troops have surrounded the mosque and an adjoining madrasa for women over the past six days in the heart of the Pakistani capital, but have so far held back from an all-out assault.
— With input from agencies
A relative of one of the alleged hostages told The Associated Press that armed men were holding about 250 people in an area of the mosque’s basement where the faithful wash before prayers.
Bakht Sher said that he spoke with his 22-year-old nephew, Noorul Hayat, by mobile phone yesterday morning.
Hayat said that the body of a man was lying in the basement after he was shot dead by militants as he tried to flee, according to Sher.
Hayat, a construction worker who was trapped inside the mosque when the crisis erupted, said the hostages receive food and water and hear occasional gunshots but are not allowed to leave the basement.
“So long as there are people inside who are holding innocent children and women hostages, we have to be very careful. If we wanted to barge in guns blazing, we could have done it on day one,” said State Information Minister Tariq Azim.
“We will have to play this wait game. It may take a while, but I think we will succeed in the end,” he told the Dawn News television channel.
Azim countered claims that hundreds had died during the overnight operation to breach the madrasa walls.
The local Geo television channel quoted an unnamed spokesman inside the mosque as saying 305 men and women had been killed in the assaults. Azim said Ghazi has “lost his senses. He has no credibility.”
Ghazi had earlier said dozens of his followers had been killed before yesterday’s raid, with the government challenging him to allow ambulances to enter the compound to pick up the dead and injured.
The conflicting claims were difficult to assess independently. Journalists, first allowed within about 200 meters of the mosque, were Saturday pushed back another 300 meters or more from the embattled area.
Troops surrounded the mosque and seminary after tensions between government security forces and Islamic students - who have sought to impose Taleban-style rule in the city - erupted into deadly street clashes.
More than 1,200 people, mainly students from the mosque’s two Islamic schools, have fled the complex. Officials say up to 100 armed militants and an unknown number of students remain inside.
Ghazi says his followers were willing to lay down their arms, but on condition neither he nor they are arrested.
— With input from agencies
