Peace Like A River: Violence at the Red Mosque

From the Guardian:

Security forces clashed with militants outside a radical mosque in the Pakistani capital, triggering fighting that left one soldier dead, several students and troops injured, and the Ministry of Environment building on fire.

The battle marked a major escalation in a standoff at the Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, whose clerics have challenged the military-led government by mounting a vigilante anti-vice campaign in Islamabad.

Trouble began when student followers of the mosque, including young men with guns and dozens of women wearing black burqas, rushed toward a nearby police checkpoint early Tuesday afternoon.

This mosque is well known as a source of radical activism. It has the Jamia Hafsa madrassa for women, and many of its several thousand students come from the tribal areas. There is also a seminary for men. The mosque is friendly to the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

The mosque is run by Maulana Abdul Aziz and Abdul Rashid Ghazi, sons of Maulana Abdullah who was assassinated in the mosque in 1998. The Political Pakistan blog says he was "shot dead as he crossed the courtyard of the Lal Masjid - by suspected Shia militants."

The mosque has called for assassination of President Musharraf, so it is no friend of the government. It remains to be seen if the government uses this violence to seriously crack down on the mosque.

Here is video of the unrest around the mosque.

The Pak Tribune reports:

The death toll, due to ongoing Lal Masjid crisis has arisen to 10, while 150 persons have been reported as injured.

Meanwhile unconfirmed sources have put the death toll at 20, majority of whom are general public, while they also include a Rangers personnel Mubarik Hussain journalist Javed Khan, a trader of Aabpara, Amraiz and students.

Dawn reports:

In a bid to tighten noose around the Lal Masjid administration, the government on Monday reinforced the Rangers force deployed near the mosque with another two wings, each with 500 personnel and lodged them in apartments recently vacated by the Punjab Constabulary near Aabpara.

A senior security official, however, told Dawn that the government had no intention of conducting any raid on the mosque and its seminaries. “But the forces deployed near the mosque will take stern action against Lal Masjid students if they take law in their own hands or attack any massage centre or CDs shop,” he added.

The official said the number of Rangers deployed near the mosque had now gone up to 1,500 and they were being supported by 500 police commandos.

The purpose of deployment of Rangers for the first time so close to the mosque, he said, was to keep a close eye on the activities of Jamia Hafsa and Jamia Freedia’s students.

The Rangers have also started patrolling but they do not go near the mosque. The police commandos are on all sides within a half kilometre radius to stop any action by students.

Sources said that Lal Masjid also had reinforced its brigade by calling more activists from other areas and seminaries.

The sources said they had reports that the Lal Masjid brigade had advanced weapons, wireless systems and special masks to be used in the event of a gas attack.

The soldier killed was from these Rangers.

The APP says:

Meanwhile talking to ARY TV the Minister said Ministry of Information had issued press instructions for media-persons to keep themselves at distance from the site of incident.

He said ulema of the country, Council of Islamic Ideology and Imam-e-Kaaba had condemned acts of the Lal Masjid administration.

The Senator said students of the Jamia Hafsa resorted to unprovoked firing, following the incidents of rifles snatching and wireless sets from police this morning.

The students tried to occupy two government buildings adjacent to Lal Masjid and set on fire building of the Environment Ministry, he added.

The Minister urged those who were taking law into their hands must surrender themselves before law of the land.

Update: Bill Roggio adds:

The Lal Masjid showdown intensified at the end of March, when Maulana Abdul Aziz, the senior cleric at the mosque gave the government seven days to impose sharia law, and began setting up sharia courts and sending out the burka-clad, baton-wielding female students as enforcement squads. Maulana Abdul Aziz, the leader of the Lal Masjid, stated the brigade can now enforce sharia and attack CD and video shops in the capital.

The Pakistani government has caved to Aziz and Ghazi's demands. Kidnapped police and government officials have been held hostage for long periods of time and only released after members of the Lal Masjid were released from custody. The government has failed to enforce arrest warrants for wanted suspects inside the mosque. And the government will rebuild mosques that were demolished after being illegally built.

ADNKI tells how this unreset has sparked demonstrations in support of the Red Mosque elsewhere.

In Mingora, a town in a scenic moutainous area of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, (NWFP) some 7,000 youths gathered under the guidance of a local cleric to declare their support for jihad in favour of Lal Masjid, militant sources in the area say. The youngsters reportedly belong to Tehrik-i-Nifaz-i-Shariat Mohammadi (TNSM), a banned Islamist militant group, and were hurriedly called from the nearby districts of Malakand, Mengora, Swat.

The sources maintained that similar sentiments are rampant in the tribal areas of South Waziristan and North Waziristan with large groups of young armed men congregating in Wana and Miran Shah areas and vowing to travel to Islamabad and defend the Lal Masjid. Most of the 5,000 female students at the Islamic boarding schools attached to the Lal Masjid come from North West Frontier Province, South Waziristan and North Waziristan.

In metropolitan Karachi, the scene of explosive poltical clashes last month in which more than forty people were killed, text messages of support for the radical Islamists are circulating on cellphones urging people to rise up against the government.

Small spontaneous demonstrations also took place across the country. Hundreds of workers belonging to Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Islam took to the street in south western Baluchistan’s capital Quetta and demanded an immediately halt to any police action against the mosque.

Thousands of armed man in Mansehra, belonging to TNSM, have threatened that if the operation is not stopped they will start occupying the national highways and block all traffic.

For more background on the Red Mosque, Dateline on Australia's SBS TV did a story you can see in these two clips.