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Mosque 80% cleared of militants
10/07/2007 14:56 - (SA)
Islamabad - Pakistani troops were flushing out holdouts entrenched inside a women's religious school in fierce house-to-house combat on Tuesday at Islamabad's Red Mosque that left about 50 militants and eight soldiers dead, the army said.
Commandos stormed the sprawling mosque compound before dawn, and 12 hours later the army said the complex was 80% cleared of militants but it was still trying to root out well-armed defenders said to be holding a number of hostages.
Khalid Pervez, the city's top administrator, said as many as 50 women were the first to be freed by the militants and had emerged from the complex following the escape of 26 children.
Mohammed Khalid Jamil, a reporter for the local Aaj television network, was among journalists who said they saw dozens of women and girls walking on a road away from the mosque. They were wearing burqas, he said.
A military official said the women included the wife and daughter of Abdul Aziz, the former head of the mosque who was arrested while trying to flee the complex last week.
It was not clear how many noncombatants were being held hostage or used as human shields or were staying behind because they believed in the mosque's cause. Last week, a number of those who left the mosque, including young women, said their colleagues were there of their own free will and prepared to die.
Intense fighting
Army spokesperson Major General Waheed Arshad said hostages were still being held and that fighting was intense.
Gunfire and explosions thundered over the city while "Operation Silence," as it has been code-named, proceeded.
Abdul Sattar Edhi, head of the private relief agency Edhi Foundation, told reporters that the army had asked him to prepare 400 white shrouds used for covering the dead.
"We are taking a step-by-step approach so there is no collateral damage," Arshad told reporters. "We are fighting room by room." He added that stun grenades were being used to avoid casualties among the hostages.
- AP
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