Tensions Rise At Besieged Pakistan Mosque

Pakistan's army tried to blast through the wall of a besieged radical Islamic seminary early Sunday to help free hostages held by a cleric and his militant supporters, leaving one commando dead, an official said.

But senior government officials warned, even the slightest hope for a conciliatory end to the dispute was fading away after Lieutenant Colonel Haroon-ul-Islam, an officer of the Pakistani military's elite commando unit – SSG (Special Services Group) was killed overnight in an apparent attempt to storm the mosque, while another officer was injured.

"It's looking like a grim situation. These people (militants) are not willing to be flexible" Tariq Azeem, deputy minister of information told CBS News.

Abdul Rashid Ghazi, the clerical leader of the militants inside the mosque told Pakistani TV channels Sunday morning that 280 women and 25 men were killed in overnight gun battles. But government officials denied the claim.

Militants inside the fortress-like Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, opened fire on the army forces, army spokesman Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad said. One soldier later died in hospital, bringing the official death toll in the siege to at least 24.

President Gen. Pervez Musharraf threatened Saturday to kill the holdouts unless they surrendered, in his first public statement on the siege.

Thousands of troops have surrounded the mosque and an adjoining seminary 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.

"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 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 said about 24 people have been confirmed killed, with "many more" hospitalized with injuries.

Gunfire and heavy explosions could be heard just after midnight Sunday and then sporadically throughout the dawn hours, punctuating the thunder of a fierce monsoon downpour. By midmorning Sunday, both the gunfire and rain had stopped.

Musharraf said his government had exercised restraint to ensure the safety of women and children, who officials say are being held hostage by the mosque's senior cleric, Abdul Rashid Ghazi.

Ghazi, a former civil servant turned rigid Islamist, says he and his followers prefer martyrdom to the unconditional surrender demanded by the government. He denies holding anyone against their will.

Azim said some of those inside the complex were not students but rather "trained armed militants."

"The very fact that they can use heavy automatic weapons with some expertise shows that they are not just ordinary 14, 15-year-old students, and they keep claiming that they have enough ammunition inside to keep this fight going for one long month," he said.

Azim countered claims that hundreds had died during the overnight operation to breach the seminary 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 Sunday'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 (yards) of the mosque, were Saturday pushed back another 300 meters (yards) or more from the embattled area.

Arshad said the dead commando had been overseeing the operation to blast holes in the walls of the compound when he was shot a number of times during "intense firing" by militants. He and the other commando wounded in the operation belonged to the army's Special Services Group, an elite force that Musharraf once commanded.

"They were working to help the women and children, who have been taken hostage by extremists and militants, Abdul Rashid Ghazi and his people, to free them from their clutches," Arshad said.

He said security forces have used explosives to blast six or seven holes in the perimeter walls of the embattled school and several people have escaped through them.

Three paramilitary troops were wounded on Saturday.

On Friday, shots were fired from the rooftop of a house in a location close to Islamabad's international airport while General Musharraf's plane was in the air. Pakistan's security forces subsequently recovered two weapons including a light machine gun and a long barreled gun used to fire at long distance objects in the air.

On Friday too, six people including at least four soldiers were killed in a suicide attack in Dir-a largely pro Taliban town in north western Pakistan.

"Even if the risk is not from large anti-government protests against the Pakistani government, there is still a danger of the situation in Islamabad provoking militant attacks" a senior western diplomat on Sunday told CBS News on the condition that he would not be named.

The government says the militants are armed with assault rifles, grenades, petrol bombs and other weaponry.

Troops surrounded the mosque and seminary after tensions between government security forces and Islamic students — who have sought to impose Taliban-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.