ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- The fate of scores of hostages was still unknown late yesterday after Pakistani commandos fought their way into a heavily fortified radical mosque in the capital, killing the chief cleric and more than 50 armed followers and arresting dozens.
At least eight soldiers died in more than 20 hours of fighting that began early in the day and appeared to be winding down after dark.
But debate was only beginning over whether the battle for Islamabad's Red Mosque would prove a boon or a body blow to the administration of President Pervez Musharraf, a general whose political standing already was precarious after months of criticism by a pro-democracy movement.
Analysts say Musharraf's degree of success in rehabilitating his political image with a forceful stand against Islamic militants will depend in part on the final toll at the mosque; the extent to which the dead cleric, Abdul Rashid Ghazi, is embraced as a martyr; and whether there is a significant backlash from the country's many extremist Islamic groups, which have staged suicide attacks in Pakistani cities.
"These events could enfeeble or embolden" Musharraf, Samir Puri, a defense analyst at RAND Europe, said of the general who seized power eight years ago. "If he is seen to have been decisive, and as having acted in the interests of maintaining law and order, this will emphasize his claim, and the army's, to being the custodians of the nation."
The toll could rise sharply as troops conduct a painstaking search of a labyrinth of rooms, some of them booby-trapped, inside the sprawling two-acre compound. The site carried heavy symbolic weight, given its proximity to the capital's diplomatic enclave, government ministries and the president's office.
Officials declined to estimate how many people were still inside last night, but a local relief agency said the army asked for 400 white funeral shrouds.
The assault on the mosque began before dawn with a burst of explosions and gunfire that echoed across the neatly manicured capital. Throughout the day, helicopters circled overhead and armored vehicles and ambulances rolled, while sobbing parents of students at two Islamic seminaries inside the compound waited behind barbed-wire barricades for word.
The chief cleric had insisted in interviews from inside the besieged mosque that he would die rather than give up. Ghazi made his last stand in the basement of the mosque, where military officials said he and his followers used students, including women and boys, as human shields.
Nearly 90 people escaped or were freed in the first hours of the fighting, authorities said. In the days before the compound was stormed, soldiers blew holes in the walls to try to provide escape routes for hostages. Some students were shot by the militants while trying to flee the compound, the government said.
The standoff, months in the making, began in earnest July 3 when militants inside the compound fired shots at Pakistani police. As the siege tightened day by day, Musharraf's government tried repeatedly to negotiate - acting out of concern, officials said, for those being held at the mosque against their will.
Last Wednesday, more than 1,100 people left the compound that at one point housed two Islamic schools with a combined enrollment of about 5,000 students. Among those who fled was Ghazi's brother and fellow cleric, Abdul Aziz, who tried unsuccessfully to slip past police.
Government negotiators made a final effort to achieve a peaceful resolution that broke down hours before the assault began, with Ghazi demanding unconditional freedom for himself and his followers.
Ghazi and Aziz had told followers over the past six months to embark on a vigilante-style campaign to impose Islamic law, or Shariah, in the capital.
While the government's decision to move against the mosque had widespread public support, protests and calls for vengeance erupted in tribal areas adjoining the Afghan border and in other religiously conservative areas of the country.
Mubashir Zaidi and Laura King write for the Los Angeles Times. The Associated Press contributed to this article.