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ISLAMABAD : Heavy gunfire and explosions rocked a besieged Pakistani mosque early Friday after the government rejected a conditional surrender offer by a cleric it accused of using women and children as human shields.
There was no call for pre-dawn prayers from the mosque's loudspeakers, indicating the damage inflicted on the fortified complex by four days of intense gunfire and blasts.
A mosque official, on condition of anonymity, said that there were casualties in the early Friday gunbattles and the building had been hit by further mortar fire from security forces.
"There are casualties on our side, but I cannot tell how many," he told AFP, however no government official was immediately available to comment.
The tense standoff in central Islamabad erupted again on Thursday afternoon in some of the heaviest clashes yet, with students opening fire on troops and hurling hand grenades.
Authorities said Abdul Rashid Ghazi, the deputy leader of the Lal Masjid or Red Mosque, must come out with his 1,000 followers and lay down their weapons following the violence, which has 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 late Thursday.
Deputy Information Minister Tariq Azeem 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.
Two huge blasts later destroyed most of the wall surrounding the complex and sent smoke spewing into the evening sky.
Officials said security forces were using explosives to demolish the wall and had come under rocket attack.
Heavy gunfire and blasts erupted again early Friday after nearly an eight-hour lull as armoured personnel carriers moved closer to the mosque.
"Explosive charges have been detonated by security forces to further damage and demolish the boundary wall," a security official told AFP.
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.
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.
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. - AFP/ch
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