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| World Home » Current Affairs » | Fri. Nov 21, 2008 |
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Situation in Lal Masjid miserable, Innocent Children held inside MIL/Agencies, Jul 7, 2007. Islamabad: July 07, 2007 (Saturday) – The situation inside the Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) is becoming grim since there are many innocent children and women taken captive by the Islamic radicals inside the mosque. The Security forces are to move cautiously, they cannot afford to take the risk of children’s life. There is a twin problem, how to rescue the children and women and also how to capture the radicals. Although more than 1,200 people have fled the mosque since the siege began onTuesday, authorities predict that several hundred remain within. Only a few dozen are suspected to be hard-core radicals; others appear to want to leave but are forced to remain inside so as to provide shield to them. The government has refrained from launching a full-scale invasion of the mosque compound, even though the militants are believed to be severely outgunned. In the meantime, thousands of heavily armed rangers and commandos have formed a tight cordon around the compound as per Agency reports. Clerics at the pro-Taliban Red Mosque, also called the Lal Masjid, want to turn Pakistan into a theocracy. During the past few months, students at an affiliated madrassa, or religious school, have abducted alleged prostitutes and forced them to confess and threatened video store owners with attacks. On Tuesday, a clash between the radicals and government forces left at least 19 people dead. The government of President Pervez Musharraf has wrestled for months with how to respond but is now demanding that the radicals surrender unconditionally. After indicating Thursday night that he would leave the mosque peacefully, firebrand cleric Abdul Rashid Ghazi said in a televised interview on Friday that he had decided to fight to the death. "We can be martyred, but we will not court arrest," as per Griff Witte, Washington Post Foreign Service.
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