The captured leader of hundreds of radical Islamic students holed up in a besieged mosque in the Pakistani capital urged his followers on Thursday to surrender to authorities or flee. Religious followers walk on their way to surrender outside the Lal Masjid mosque in Islamabad, Pakistan, on Thursday. (Anjum Naveed/Associated Press) Head cleric Maulana Abdul Aziz, who was captured Wednesday by government security forces while trying to escape from Islamabad's Lal Masjid mosque, also told state television that nearly 1,000 people were still inside the mosque and would not be able to hold out for long. Aziz said that as many as 700 women and about 250 men remained inside the mosque compound and an adjacent women's seminary, some armed with more than a dozen AK-47 assault rifles provided by "friends."
"If they can get out quietly they should go, or they can surrender if they want to," he said, still dressed in a burqa. "I saw after coming out that the siege is very intense.… Our companions will not be able to stay for long."Officials said over 1,100 militants had given up and more emerged early Thursday as police using loudspeakers appealed to those remaining inside to surrender under an amnesty offered by the government.
"We have no militants, we only had students. If somebody came from outside, I have no information on that," he said, also denying his previous vow to launch suicide bombers in event of a government attack on the mosque. Despite Aziz's apparent appeal for a peaceful end to the standoff, gunfire erupted around the mosque after a noon deadline demanding a total surrender passed. Four helicopters hovered over the area, while authorities barred journalists from getting near the mosque.
The Pakistani army surrounded the mosque Wednesday, a day after at least 16 people were killed in clashes between security forces and armed activists from the mosque, whose clerics have defied the government for months with a drive to impose Taliban-style Islamic law in the city.
In recent months, Aziz and his loyal clerics have challenged the government of Gen. Pervez Musharraf by sending students of the mosque to kidnap alleged prostitutes and police in an anti-vice campaign.
No comments:
Post a Comment