At least 3 shot dead in clashes at Pakistan mosque

By Kamran Haider

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - A paramilitary trooper and at least two students were killed when gunfire erupted during clashes at a mosque run by a Taliban-style movement in Islamabad on Tuesday, police and hospital officials said.

A cleric inside Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, told Reuters eight students had been killed in exchanges of fire, and a loudspeaker in the compound broadcast a message calling on followers of the movement to begin suicide attacks.

The clashes began when around 150 students attacked a security picket at a government office near the mosque, snatched weapons and took four officials hostage, according to police.

Paramilitary forces fired tear gas to disperse hundreds of students outside the mosque, and came under fire from automatic weapons. Several female students were taken to hospitals, suffering from the effects of the gas.

Authorities have been locked in a tense stand-off for months with the student movement, which is seeking to impose Taliban-style social values in the Pakistani capital.

"I can confirm that one of our troopers has been killed in the firing from inside the mosque," Masha Allah, a senior paramilitary official, told reporters.

A senior doctor at the capital's state-owned PIMS hospital said at least two students had died from their wounds.

"Two students brought here with gunshot wounds have succumbed," he told Reuters on condition of anonymity.

Officials at two hospitals said at least a dozen people had been admitted with gunshot wounds, including a cameraman with CNBC news channel.

Students set alight part of a building housing the environment ministry, and stoned other government offices, breaking windows.

As the firing continued over several hours the call for suicide attacks was issued over a loudspeaker. "We had asked to stop the firing 10 minutes ago, but as the firing continues we are calling for suicide attacks."

Despite the shooting, dozens of students carrying staves remained on the street outside the mosque.

Burqa-clad women stood on the rooftops of an adjacent madrasa, or Islamist school, shouting anti-government slogans, while male students guarded the entrances to the compound, and some were seen brandishing Kalashnikov rifles.

"KILL US"

"Kill us. We will die but we will not back off from our demands to enforce Islamic Sharia," Mahira, one of the female students, told Reuters by telephone.

Troops occupied buildings overlooking the sprawling mosque complex, which also houses a madrasa.

Police armed with batons lined up and ambulances parked in nearby streets.

Scores of men, women and children living in the neighborhood also came out on the streets shouting support for the students, and calling on the government to stop the firing.

The Red Mosque has long been known as a hotbed of Islamic radicalism. Trouble began in January when female students attached to the mosque occupied a library next to their madrasa to protest destruction of mosques built illegally on state land.

The government has hitherto refrained from using force, out of fear it could provoke threatened suicide attacks.

Concern casualties among female students could result in a backlash from religious conservatives around the country has also stayed the government's hand.

Last Friday, President Pervez Musharraf said suicide bombers from an al Qaeda-linked militant group, Jaish-e-Mohammad, were holed up in the mosque.

Musharraf, who survived two al Qaeda-inspired assassination attempts, said the government had tried to resolve the standoff through negotiations, but was ready to take action.