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ISLAMABAD : Pakistani security forces fought fierce gun battles with students at a pro-Taliban mosque in Islamabad on Tuesday after a lengthy standoff exploded into violence, leaving 12 people dead and 140 hurt.
Clerics from the radical Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, vowed suicide attacks to avenge the "blood of martyrs" after the day-long clashes. The victims included a soldier, a journalist, at least four students and several bystanders.
The shootout in the heart of the leafy capital followed months of tension over the mosque's challenges to the authority of President Pervez Musharraf, most recently the kidnapping of seven Chinese as part of an anti-vice campaign.
Deputy interior minister Zafar Warriach told reporters that nine people were killed and 140 wounded in the violence. Hospitals in the city later said that another three people had died, confirming that the overall toll was 12.
Musharraf - a key US ally already reeling from a political crisis over his suspension of the country's chief justice - met with Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and top security officials late Tuesday to plot a course of action.
"A decision whether to continue the operation will be taken after assessing the ground realities," Warriach said. "It is the government's duty to provide protection to its countrymen."
Each side blamed the other for the carnage.
Security officials said it began when dozens of baton-wielding male and burqa-clad female students attacked policemen near the mosque, stealing four guns and a radio and prompting police to fire tear gas in response.
As people fled from two nearby shopping areas, students wearing gas masks started trading Kalashnikov fire with security forces from behind sandbags and bunkers chanting "Jihad! Jihad! (holy war)", an AFP correspondent said.
Sporadic exchanges of gunfire continued throughout the afternoon.
Later students set fire to the nearby Ministry of Environment building and another government property.
A cameraman for a private television channel was shot dead when troops opened fire to disperse the mob as it tried to smash up a girls' school, an AFP photographer who witnessed the incident said.
A loudspeaker announcement from the mosque as night fell warned of impending suicide attacks. A ceasefire called to allow negotiations at about the same time broke down after several hours.
"The blood of the martyrs will not go to waste. We are ready for suicide attacks," the unidentified mullah's voice said. "Our holy war will continue until sharia (Islamic law) is enforced throughout the country."
One of the mosque's main goals is to make Pakistan an Islamic state like the one put in place by the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, which lasted from 1996 until the US-led invasion in 2001.
One of the two brothers who runs the mosque, Abdul Rashid Ghazi, said the students had only retaliated after security forces opened fire.
"The administration wants to see dead bodies scattered on the roads. Why are they doing this?" he said.
Hospitals in Islamabad declared a state of emergency as blood-spattered minibuses and private ambulances ferried in casualties, including dozens of female Islamic students.
Military ruler Musharraf has faced mounting criticism over the failure to crack down on the mosque. He said last week that suicide bombers from an Al-Qaeda-linked militant group were sheltering in it.
But he has held off largely for fear of causing casualties among the thousands of students - especially the women, who mostly hail from Taliban-sympathising areas along the Afghan border.
Thousands of Islamic students protested in the northwestern town of Mingora and the southwestern city of Quetta on Tuesday against the bloodshed, witnesses said.
The Red Mosque has been monitored by scores of security personnel since its students took control of a neighbouring government-run children's library in January. - AFP/de
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