pr-inside.com : Defiance in Pakistan at Red Mosque cleric's funeral

Defiance in Pakistan at Red Mosque cleric's funeral

By KHALID TANVEER | Associated Press Writer | July 12, 2007

BASTI ABDULLAH, Pakistan (AP) - The captured chief cleric of the Red Mosque was allowed to lead funeral prayers for his slain brother Thursday, and forecast that the death of the mosque's militant defenders would push Pakistan toward an «Islamic revolution».

The army crackdown on the radical mosque has raised the standing of President Gen.
Pervez Musharraf among moderates and foreign backers worried about rising extremism in Pakistan.

But it has given hard-liners a rallying point and new martyrs to mourn, and has prompted calls from al-Qaida and Taliban for revenge attacks.

Troops combing the Islamabad mosque and its adjoining seminary for girls found Abdul Rashid Ghazi's body among the remains of at least 73 people after the 35-hour commando assault ended Wednesday.

During a media tour of the bullet-scarred, heavily damaged compound, army spokesman Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad said two suicide bombings occurred during the assault.

Arshad showed a room with a charred interior where he said a bomber blew himself up along with five or six other people the general described as hostages, although their bodies were charred beyond recognition. The second bomber killed himself at the entrance of the mosque.

Authorities recovered 75 bodies, none of them women or children, with 19 of these charred beyond recognition, Arshad said.

The remains of dozens of militants were lowered into temporary graves in the capital early Thursday.

Officials released Ghazi's body directly to his relatives, who carried it to his ancestral village in Punjab province for burial on Thursday.

Police escorted Maulana Abdul Aziz, who was caught during the eight-day siege while trying to flee disguised as a woman, to Basti Abdullah so that he could attend his brother's funeral at a seminary set up by his father.

The brother took over the running of the Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, in the capital after their father's assassination in a sectarian attack in 1998.

«Hundreds of our mothers, sisters, sons and daughters have rendered sacrifices,» Aziz, a gray-bearded man dressed in white clothes and a checkered head scarf, said before leading prayers attended by about 3,000 people.

«Whatever happened in the past days is not hidden from anyone. God willing, Pakistan will have an Islamic revolution soon. The blood of martyrs will bear fruit,» Aziz said calmly.

«We can let our necks be severed but we cannot bow down before oppressive rulers. Our struggle will continue. There are many Ghazis living to be martyred,» he said.

About two dozen police commandos led Aziz into the madrassa compound and escorted him back after the funeral prayers and drove him away in a white police pickup truck.

Several female relatives of Ghazi dressed in black veils flashed victory signs to reporters as police escorted them to a waiting car after the funeral.

Some 700 police, including 100 plainclothes officers, were deployed for security at the gathering, area police chief Maqsoodul Hassan Chaudhry said.

According to official reports, 108 people died in eight days of fighting around the Red Mosque and its adjoining seminary for girls, which had challenged the government with an increasingly aggressive anti-vice campaign in the capital.

Officials said the dead included 10 soldiers, one police ranger and several civilians killed in the crossfire of the initial street battles that erupted July 3.

After the government cleared the compound of its die-hard defenders Wednesday, Al-Qaida's deputy leader joined the militant outcry against Musharraf, calling on Pakistanis to wage holy war to avenge the army assault.

In a video message, Ayman al-Zawahri told Pakistanis their president «rubbed your honor in the dirt».

Ghazi's death was a «dirty, despicable crime» that can «only be washed away by repentance or blood,» said al-Zawahri, who is believed to be hiding near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

At least three other protests linked to the attack were staged in the country.

«This is a conspiracy by Jews and Christians against Islam,» said cleric Mohammed Sadiq as some 6,000 people gathered for funerals of three religious students killed in the mosque in the Bajur tribal region of the northwest.

Also in the northwest, a hotbed of Islamic extremism, several hundred protesters in the town of Bana attacked office of three non-governmental organizations, including Care and Save the Children, said police officer Mohammed Idrees.

Prayers were offered for Ghazi in the city of Lahore by more than 2,000 lawyers and opposition activists who hold weekly protests against Musharraf's attempt to sack the country's chief justice.

«This issue could have been resolved through negotiations but General Musharraf intentionally spilled blood of innocent people to please his foreign masters,» said Mohammed Ahsan Bhoon, president of the Lahore High Court Bar Association.

Many of the protesters chanted «Go Musharraf go» and «Musharraf is a dog».

Musharraf suspended Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry in March for alleged misconduct, sparking a legal tussle that has fueled growing opposition to military rule.

Critics suspect the president was trying to remove an independent-minded judge to prevent him from upholding legal challenges to his continued rule.

The bodies of about 70 of Ghazi's militant followers were buried early Thursday in a graveyard near Islamabad's police academy.

Officials said they took photographs, fingerprints and DNA samples from the bodies before the simple wooden coffins were lowered into shallow, temporary graves to help relatives identify and claim the bodies later.

Momin Agha, a city official, said 69 bodies, including those of three minors, were buried.

Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said Wednesday that commandos had found no corpses of women and children. The army said seven or eight of the bodies had been burned beyond recognition.

Arshad said among the 85 people who came out during the final phases of the assault, 39 were under the age of 18. There were 56 males and 29 females.

After the siege began, the government says about 1,300 people escaped or otherwise left the compound.

However, there is skepticism about the military's account and speculation that the toll could be much higher. The Dawn newspaper on Thursday cited an anonymous witness who said he had entered the mosque and seen «hundreds» of corpses.

The extremists had used the mosque as a base to send out radicalized students to enforce their version of Islamic morality, including abducting alleged prostitutes and trying to «re-educate» them at the compound.

Elite Special Services Group commandos went in after unsuccessful attempts to get the heavily armed militants to surrender.

Aziz warned that the government would act against any other madrassa, or religious school, found to be involved in militancy.

Musharraf vowed five years ago to regulate Pakistan's thousands of religious schools, but concerns have only grown that some are used as sanctuaries or training sites for militants.

Deputy Information Minister Tariq Azim conceded it was possible that other madrassas in Pakistan could be harboring weaponry like the Red Mosque, but added that the assault had sent a strong message that the government «meant business».

Associated Press writers Sadaqat Jan, Zia Khan and Matthew Pennington contributed to this report.