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ISLAMABAD : New gunbattles and explosions rocked a besieged Pakistani mosque on Friday, as the government rejected a conditional surrender offer by a cleric it accused of using women and children as human shields.
Authorities said Abdul Rashid Ghazi, the deputy leader of the Lal Masjid or Red Mosque in Islamabad must come out with his 1,000 followers and lay down their weapons following three days of violence that have left 19 people dead.
A day after his brother, the head of the mosque, was caught fleeing in a woman's burqa, Ghazi said he would give himself up if he could stay on the premises temporarily with their sick mother.
"I am making this offer to save the lives of the students," he said on Thursday.
Deputy Information Minister Tariq Azeem immediately dismissed the offer, saying that Ghazi was hiding in the basement of the mosque with 20 women and an unknown number of children and could not escape justice.
"The time for rhetoric is over. He must come out with the women and children he is using as shields, hand over all the weapons, and bring it to a decent closure," he told AFP.
The tense standoff erupted on Thursday afternoon in some of the heaviest clashes yet, with students opening fire on troops and hurling hand grenades, chief military spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad said.
Two huge blasts about an hour later destroyed most of the wall surrounding the complex and sent smoke spewing into the evening sky.
US-built helicopter gunships flew low over the building.
Heavy gunfire and blasts erupted again on Friday after nearly an eight-hour lull and armoured personnel carriers moved closer to the mosque, officials said.
"Explosive charges have been detonated by security forces to further damage and demolish the boundary wall," a security official told AFP.
Information minister Muhammad Ali Durrani said that Ghazi's followers used explosives and rockets.
Interior minister Aftab Sherpao earlier said there were up to 60 "hardcore" militants in the building.
"They have AK-47s, grenades and petrol bombs, they are keeping women and children who want to come out of the mosque and are not allowing them to leave," he told a briefing.
Security forces arrested eight militants who tried to escape during a clash, some of whom were blindfolded and told to take off their shirts following claims by the mosque that it had a squad of suicide bombers.
President Pervez Musharraf, a key US ally, had however ordered security chiefs not to raid the mosque yet to avoid casualties among women and children, a top government official told AFP.
"That is delaying the final push against the compound," he added.
Ghazi and his brother, Abdul Aziz, both denied that anyone was being kept against their will.
Aziz had earlier urged his followers to give themselves up in a bizarre interview with state television. He said there were around 1,000 male and female students in the mosque.
He appeared in a black burqa under which his bushy grey beard was partly visible. The interviewer asked him to take off the veil, which he then lifted to show his face - and a bemused smile.
"After coming out I saw the siege was massive and came to the conclusion that we should give up," he said. "The government has massive resources and I realised that people will not be able to stay inside for long."
He was later remanded in custody by a court, charged with plotting terrorist attacks and kidnapping people, including seven Chinese nationals abducted by his students from an acupuncture clinic for allegedly running a brothel.
At least 50 students left the mosque on Thursday but it was a trickle compared with Wednesday's exodus when about 1,200 fled.
Musharraf, who is already facing a political crisis ahead of elections later this year after ousting the country's chief justice, ordered the crackdown after the mosque tried to set up a Taliban-style justice system.
It has led a vigilante morality campaign in Islamabad which has included the abduction of police officers and people accused of running brothels - including the seven Chinese - as well as raids on music and DVD shops. - AFP/de
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