Musharraf defends deadly raid on mosque

The Baltimore Sun

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Gen. Pervez Musharraf, in his first public comments since his troops stormed a radical mosque in the heart of the capital, defended the government's decision to seize the compound by force and vowed yesterday to fight Islamic extremists "in every corner" of Pakistan.

Hours before the president's nationally televised address, the mosque's chief cleric offered up a fiery funeral oration for his brother, a fellow cleric who was killed along with dozens of others in the two-day assault this week on the Red Mosque by elite special forces.

"God willing, Pakistan will soon have an Islamic revolution," said Abdul Aziz, who was escorted by police commandos to the funeral of his brother, Abdul Rashid Ghazi, in their ancestral village of Basti Abdullah in Punjab province.

"The blood of martyrs will bear fruit," said Aziz, who was captured days before the assault while trying to flee the mosque disguised as a woman.

The mosque raid and its aftermath have highlighted how deeply divided Pakistanis remain over the role of radical Islam in their society. Public opinion in Pakistan generally favored the mosque assault, which was launched after many calls for those inside to surrender, but Islamists' conservative views on many political and cultural issues hold sway with a significant portion of the population.

In his address, Musharraf denounced the Red Mosque leaders as going against the precepts of Islam.

"What do we as a nation want?" he asked. "What kind of Islam do these people represent?"

Pakistan was on high alert against reprisal attacks by Islamic militants who have vowed to exact vengeance for the storming of the mosque. Yesterday, in the latest of a string of deadly attacks in the tribal lands along the Afghan border, a suicide bomber killed two government officials in volatile North Waziristan and a suicide car bomber killed three policeman in another tribal area.

Even a full day after the mosque confrontation's end, the number of deaths and the manner in which they occurred were being hotly debated. The government put the death toll at 108, with about two-thirds killed in the two-day assault and the remainder in the six days leading up to it.

Leaders of hard-line religious parties put the death toll far higher, saying at least 400 people were killed, but they were unable to substantiate their claims.

The government said it knew of no women or children killed in the storming of the mosque but acknowledged that nearly 20 bodies found inside were so badly burned that their age or gender had not been determined. About 1,300 people, including dozens of women and children, fled in the two days before the assault was launched.

In the cases of many fighting-age boys and men killed in the storming of the complex, it was difficult to determine whether they had joined the ranks of the militants or were being held against their will.

Mubashir Zaidi and Laura King write for the Los Angeles Times.

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