Pakistan seizes control of seminary linked to radical mosque
Posted: 07 July 2007 0638 hrs

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ISLAMABAD - Pakistani police early Saturday seized control of an Islamic seminary run by the clerics from the embattled Red Mosque, officials said.

"Police stormed into Jamia Faridia and arrested dozens of students and shifted them to an unknown place," a senior security official told AFP.

The male seminary is located in the upmarket E-7 sector, three kilometres (two miles) from the besieged Red mosque and Jamia Hafsa female seminary where security forces are engaged in an operation against radical students.

The senior cleric of the Taliban-style Red Mosque, Abdul Aziz, was the principal of Jamia Faridia and was caught on Wednesday escaping from the Red Mosque in a burqa.

Police said the Jamia Faridia was the "powerhouse" for the Red Mosque and its adjoining female seminary and several students were involved in the current standoff.

"It is serious blow to the Red Mosque cleric and will further weaken his position," the official said referring to Aziz's younger brother Abdul Rashid Ghazi who is holed up in Red Mosque with armed students.

Authorities had feared that male students from the Faridia seminary could retaliate and open another front for the government as the bloody confrontation around the Red Mosque in which 19 people have been killed entered a fifth day.

- AFP /ls