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ISLAMABAD - Pakistani troops Tuesday launched a huge operation against militants holed up in an Islamabad mosque after negotiations to free women and children failed, leaving 20 rebels and three soldiers dead.
Massive blasts and intense gunfire rocked the pro-Taliban Red Mosque, where the government alleges that hundreds of people have been held as human shields for eight days. Plumes of black smoke rose above the complex.
Around 20 children escaped from the fortified mosque and were rescued by security forces, the military said. Dozens of ambulances with sirens wailing were seen in nearby streets.
"It is a final push to clear the mosque of armed militants," military spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad told AFP. The battle was still raging after more than three hours.
The military said troops had entered the building from three sides and were backed by armoured personnel carriers. The government has said around 100 militants were inside the compound along with 300-400 women and children.
A girls' religious school adjoining the mosque caught fire.
Arshad said at least 20 militants were killed in the fighting and 15 injured. Three security forces personnel were killed and 15 wounded, he said.
Arshad said he had "no information" about the fate of Abdul Rashi Ghazi, the firebrand cleric leading the militants.
"The militants are using small arms and grenades. They are in the basement, we have covered the rooftop," he said.
Television footage showed a wounded soldier screaming for his friend as he was stretchered into a local hospital from an ambulance.
President Pervez Musharraf authorised the storming of the mosque after an eight-day siege which had itself cost 24 lives.
Ghazi, 43, telephoned a private television channel after the raid began to say that his elderly mother was wounded in the clashes.
"I question whether the government ever intended to resolve the crisis. These people want nothing but genocide," Ghazi said. "They kept on changing their demands."
Authorities made announcements on loudspeakers urging residents in the surrounding area to stay inside for their safety.
Ministers have accused cleric Ghazi and his followers, who are said to include foreign fighters and Pakistani insurgents linked to Al-Qaeda, of holding women and children in the Red Mosque as hostages.
More than 1,200 male and female students fled the mosque earlier in the standoff but almost none have left in recent days.
Ghazi says all those inside are there of their own free will.
Minutes before the raid top government negotiator Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, a former Pakistani premier, announced the failure of talks with Ghazi.
"After 11 hours of negotiations we are deeply disappointed that the talks did not succeed," he told a news conference near the Red Mosque. "We are returning in disappointment."
Tensions at the mosque began several months ago when its students launched an anti-vice campaign in a quest to enforce Islamic law.
They also kidnapped several people, accused of involvement in prostitution, including seven Chinese, who were later freed.
Bitter street battles broke out on July 3 between police and the mosque's radical students, and it has been surrounded under a 24-hour shoot-on-sight curfew ever since.
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.
Suspected militants tried to shoot down Musharraf's plane on Friday in an incident that officials said was in revenge for the mosque siege.
The shooting dead of three Chinese workers in the northwestern city of Peshawar on Sunday was also said to be a reprisal as ripples spread across the Islamic republic.
Ghazi said earlier that he had written his will in which he hoped his "martyrdom" would spark an Islamic revolution in Pakistan, where Musharraf has fought a bloody battle with extremism since 2001.
Ghazi's brother, mosque leader Abdul Aziz, was caught on Wednesday while trying to flee the fortified complex dressed in a woman's burqa. - AFP/ir
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