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ISLAMABAD : Pakistani ministers and Islamic leaders held "last ditch" talks on Monday via loudspeaker with a cleric allegedly holding women and children inside an Islamabad mosque, but said there was no breakthrough.
Seven days into the deadly siege of the pro-Taliban Red Mosque, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said the government would allow Abdul Rashid Ghazi to be held under house arrest with his ailing mother if he surrenders.
Fears of a bloodbath have kept President Pervez Musharraf from launching a full-scale raid to end the standoff at the complex, where foreign fighters and rebels with links to Al-Qaeda are also said to be holed-up.
At least 24 people have been killed since clashes erupted there on July 3.
The negotiating team, led by former premier Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and including 11 clerics and four ministers, made "no breakthrough" after about four hours, Information Minister Muhammad Ali Durrani told reporters.
"We hope that Ghazi will show human feelings. He should soften their hearts and let the children and women come out," Durrani said.
Religious Affairs Minister Ijaz-ul Haq told AFP that Ghazi, speaking through a megaphone, as was the delegation, refused to leave the mosque.
"Ghazi will not come out and and we do not want to go inside," Haq said. "He knows what is at stake. This is a last-ditch effort."
The government later sent in a mobile phone after Ghazi said his batteries had run out. He was unable to recharge his phone because the government has cut all electricity, gas and water supplies to the mosque.
A mosque official said Ghazi wanted a delegation of clerics or a "mutually agreed emissary" to come inside. "Ghazi does not want to come out because he does not trust the government," the official told AFP.
Another delegation member, Abdul Sattar Edhi, the founder of Pakistan's oldest charity, offered to go inside the mosque, saying that there was no hope if neither side would relax its position.
"I don't care if I am taken hostage, I will cook bread for them," he said.
Ghazi has previously vowed to die with his followers rather than surrender. He said he hoped his "martyrdom" would spark an Islamic revolution in Pakistan, where Musharraf has fought a bloody battle with extremism since 2001.
But at one point last week he offered to give himself up if he and his mother were put under house arrest.
Ghazi's brother, mosque leader Abdul Aziz, was caught on Wednesday while trying to flee the fortified complex dressed in a woman's burqa.
Parents of children in the mosque waiting nearby urged the government to act swiftly.
"I was told that I could go with this delegation and take my daughter back, but they have left me here," wept Asia Bibi, 40, whose 14-year-old daughter Asma is inside the mosque.
Security forces fired teargas and exchanged fire with the rebels in clashes earlier on Monday, killing one of the mosque's radical students, security officials said. A car was also set ablaze.
Officials have said that militant commanders are inside, including some from the extremist group Harkatul-Jihad-e-Islami, which has been accused of involvement in the murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl and an attempt to kill Musharraf.
Haq said on Sunday that Ghazi had effectively lost control of the situation inside the mosque, and the resistance was now being run by the rebels.
The government's patience began to run short on Sunday when a commando from Musharraf's own elite special forces group was killed while trying to free the people allegedly being held inside as human shields.
Tensions at the mosque began several months ago when its students launched an anti-vice campaign in a quest to bring in Islamic law. Several people have been kidnapped, accused of involvement in prostitution, including seven Chinese.
Musharraf faced pressure from close ally Beijing to do more to protect Chinese nationals in Pakistan after three Chinese workers were shot dead in the northern city of Peshawar on Sunday in apparent revenge for the mosque siege.
China is Pakistan's closest ally and biggest military supporter.
Meanwhile, pro-Taliban militant commanders told around 20,000 tribesmen in the troubled Bajaur district bordering Afghanistan, some carrying rocket launchers, that they must exact revenge for the siege. - AFP/de
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