Musharraf Defends Raid that Ended Red Mosque Siege
By SALMAN MASOOD
New York Times
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, July 12 — President Pervez Musharraf on Thursday defended the raid on the Red Mosque here, which ended Wednesday, as necessary, prompted by intransigent militants who had “challenged the writ of the government.” As relatives buried the dead from the siege, three suicide bombers struck in the country’s north.
“We vow that we won’t let any mosque or madrasa be misused like the Red Mosque,” General Musharraf said in a television address Thursday evening, his first since the raid. “Wherever there is fundamentalism and extremism we have to finish that, destroy that.”
He said he ordered the military strike after negotiations failed and the ringleader of the rebellion, a militant 43-year-old cleric named Abdur Rashid Ghazi, demanded amnesty for those inside, including foreign fighters. The Red Mosque and Mr. Ghazi had long enjoyed state backing, but had lately become a festering sore in the heart of the capital.
All told, the eight-day siege at the Red Mosque, known here as the Lal Masjid, left at least 87 people dead, including Mr. Ghazi and 11 members of the Pakistani special forces who penetrated the sprawling mosque compound early Tuesday, military officials said. The military said its forces went from building to building, and then room to room, battling a small army of Islamic militants who had turned the complex into a well-armed garrison.
The siege was a watershed confrontation between General Musharraf and the religious radicals who have blossomed in his country. Their influence has steadily spread to cities from the remote tribal regions along the border with Afghanistan, where the Taliban and Al Qaeda are believed to have made a home.
(Continued here.)
New York Times
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, July 12 — President Pervez Musharraf on Thursday defended the raid on the Red Mosque here, which ended Wednesday, as necessary, prompted by intransigent militants who had “challenged the writ of the government.” As relatives buried the dead from the siege, three suicide bombers struck in the country’s north.
“We vow that we won’t let any mosque or madrasa be misused like the Red Mosque,” General Musharraf said in a television address Thursday evening, his first since the raid. “Wherever there is fundamentalism and extremism we have to finish that, destroy that.”
He said he ordered the military strike after negotiations failed and the ringleader of the rebellion, a militant 43-year-old cleric named Abdur Rashid Ghazi, demanded amnesty for those inside, including foreign fighters. The Red Mosque and Mr. Ghazi had long enjoyed state backing, but had lately become a festering sore in the heart of the capital.
All told, the eight-day siege at the Red Mosque, known here as the Lal Masjid, left at least 87 people dead, including Mr. Ghazi and 11 members of the Pakistani special forces who penetrated the sprawling mosque compound early Tuesday, military officials said. The military said its forces went from building to building, and then room to room, battling a small army of Islamic militants who had turned the complex into a well-armed garrison.
The siege was a watershed confrontation between General Musharraf and the religious radicals who have blossomed in his country. Their influence has steadily spread to cities from the remote tribal regions along the border with Afghanistan, where the Taliban and Al Qaeda are believed to have made a home.
(Continued here.)
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