<b>Ghazi, 8 security personal among 70 killed in Lal Masjid raid </b><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The cleric died "in a hail of bullets" after troops spotted him in the basement where he spent most of the day barricaded with some children and women, interior ministry spokesman Brigadier Javed Cheema said.
"Ghazi came out with four or five militants who kept on firing at security forces. The troops responded and in the crossfire he was killed," Cheema told AFP.
"It is a big blow to the extremist element in the country and a lesson for others."
Cheema said the other militants were also killed with Ghazi. The cleric's body was lying in the compound while soldiers battled to take control of the sprawling complex's 75 rooms one at a time.
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<b>5 blasts heard; corpses being taken out </b>
Updated at 0535 PST
ISLAMABAD: Powerful blasts were once again heard around Lal Masjid and Jamia Hafsa; whereas intense firing again started after 45 minutes of silence.
According to reports, the sounds of five blasts were heard in the wee hours of Wednesday.
According to last information, the dead bodies and the injured are being taken out from Lal Masjid and Jamia Hafsa
BEIJING: China told its citizens in Pakistan on Tuesday to be vigilant and urged Pakistan to punish gunmen who killed three Chinese workers and wounded one. The Chinese nationals, who worked for a motorcycle company, were ambushed on the outskirts of Peshawar on Sunday. âWe have urged the Pakistani side to seek the truth, punish the criminals, and to effectively strengthen the protection of Chinese citizens,â spokesman Qin Gang said at a news conference in Beijing. âWe also remind Chinese citizens to be more vigilant and enhance awareness of self-protection.â reuters
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The âLal Masjidâ Operation was conducted-enacted under the Direct Orders from China as the Operation was immediately after the âKidnapping Affairâ of Six or Seven Females alleged to practicing the Oldest Profession in the World i.e. Prostitution.
You will remember that after the Killing of Daniel Pearle there was no such an Intensive Operation the ensuing Operation was more like the Keystone Cops performing their Slapstick Routine!
One can judge the Ferocity of the Operation-Attack on the Lal Masjid by the request made by the Pakistani Authorities to the Edhi foundation as per the following report :
I<b>SLAMABAD : Renowned social worker Abdus Sattar Edhi said on Tuesday the government had asked him to prepare shrouds for 800 more bodies after already sending 300 to the Lal Masjid and Jamia Hafsa. Edhi termed the incident the worst of its kind in Pakistan. Edhi volunteers are carrying on their work to recover the bodies from the seminary and the mosque.</b>
So we know that the "Death Toll" in this Operation Carried out by the Valiant Islamic Warriors of the Pakistani Army is<b><span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'> at least ELEVEN HUNDRED - IF NOT MORE</span></b>
<b>ISLAMABAD : The operation against militants in Lal Masjid still continued, military spokesman said on Wednesday.</b>
Army spokesman, Major General Waheed Arshad talking to media said that three more militants were killed in the night fighting with the army.
Ten soldiers were martyred and 33 were wounded in the operation, he said. <!--emo&:liar liar--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/liar.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='liar.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Elaborating further he said that the first phase of the operation was focused on getting the militants cleared of the mosque complex. The second phase of the operation to clean Lal Masjid and Jamia Hafsa was underway.
<b><span style='font-size:12pt;line-height:100%'>He said a visit of media men to the mosque complex would be arranged tomorrow.</span></b>
The spokesman said that holes in the walls of the mosque were made during the operation to get release of hostage children and women.
<b>He denied any incident of suicide bombing in the country after the operation, saying that the law and order situation is under control.</b> <!--emo&tupid--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/pakee.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='pakee.gif' /><!--endemo-->
No link sorry -
<b>The Lal Masjid affair </b>
<b>The Pakistan report card</b>
By Fasi Zaka
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->In all likelihood the Lal Masjid situation would have continued indefinitely had it not been for the crucial mistake to abduct the Chinese from the massage parlor. The Chinese government came down heavily on Pakistan because it wanted the assurance that the life of its citizens would be safe, no matter how blue collared their profession in Pakistan. Contrast that with the behavior of the Pakistani government who did not act when a woman was abducted and made out to be a brothel Madame and paraded to the public. She deserved the benefit of doubt until it was proved otherwise.
<b>Had Lal Majid been in E-7 or F-6 rather than the relatively less posh G-6, it is likely that action would have been taken sooner against the two brothers leading the mosque because the targets for kidnapping would have hit closer to home in the government circles.</b> After the Chinese, the government must have also been scared that the<b> brothers had their sights set on some of the western expatriates living in the capital; the brothers' Abdul had been giving statements against the "nudists" who roamed the streets with their UN and diplomatic license plates. If that had happened it would have been political suicide for Musharraf</b>.
Durrani may have kept his job as information minister, but its time he capitalizes on it with a stellar job. The images of Maluana Aziz in a burqa are a Godsend. They are the striking evidence of the cowardice of the Ghazi's and Osama's of the world happy to use the poorest of the poor as cannon fodder for their ideological purposes. The shootout taking place can either be romanticized as a holdout of the believer against the stooges of the west, or a cornered coward hiding behind women and children. If the fallout is to be minimized then it is imperative the latter narrative wins in the battle of spin.
Even if the standoff is resolved correctly with the brothers' of the Lal Masjid made to pay for their crimes, it would be a shallow victory. The underlying problem would remain, that is the poverty that drives people to be appropriated by the vendors of militancy and the inability of the government to implement the madressah reforms project.
But, frankly, the whole Lal Masjid operation now has helped save Musharraf's beleaguered presidency. Attention has been diverted from other crises, <b>the militants are demonized rather than sympathized with, and finally Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry has been knocked off the front pages of newspapers</b>. If this whole crisis at the Lal Masjid is actually staged as some suggest, then the playwright deserves an Oscar, especially for the escape scene that made one of the Lal Brothers look positively yellow. Maulana Aziz's cross-dressing seems to have allowed Musharraf to pull the trigger against all his targets in the political crosshair.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>All illegal structures to be razed: Lal Masjid</b>
By Syed Irfan Raza & Mohammad Asghar
ISLAMABAD, July 10: The government has decided to remove the building of Jamia Hafsa and all illegal structures in the Lal Masjid compound which were established on illegally occupied state land, sources told Dawn on Tuesday.
The sources said it had been decided before the operation that except the Lal Masjid all other structures <b>including the residences of Maulana Abdul Aziz and Maulana Abdul Rashid Ghazi would be demolished.</b>
A senior official of the local administration, who did not want to be named, said the government had decided to bring the Lal Masjid to its original size. However, he did not say exactly how long it would take to raze the illegal structures.
The Lal Masjid administration had reportedly been constructing structures and rooms in the mosque complex for the last many years but it accelerated the process during the tenure of the present regime.
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<b>The battle for Islamabad</b><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->The fact that several bouts of negotiations proved fruitless may not be unrelated to the governmentâs choice of negotiators: Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain and Ijazul Haq invariably seemed all too eager to accept the outlandish demands of the mosqueâs clerics without obtaining any meaningful reciprocal concessions. Either their skills in this department left a great deal to be desired, or they were pursuing an agenda at odds with the purported policies of General Pervez Musharraf.
The charge that a hard core of militants associated with organisations such as Lashkar-i-Tayyaba and Jaish-i-Mohammed was entrenched in the mosque was aired several days after the siege began, and there was no guarantee its culmination would bring clarity.
<b>And this despite the proximity of the ISI headquarters to Lal Masjid, which meant that military intelligence personnel regularly went there to pray. Or perhaps because of it, given persistent allegations that the two maulanas owed their relative untouchability to connections in the military hierarchy. After all, their father, Maulana Abdullah â the mosqueâs first preacher and a vociferous advocate of jihad â was believed to be close to the military dictator General Ziaul Haq. </b><!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Maulana Aziz to attend funeral of Ghazi ISLAMABAD, July 11 (PPI) - Without giving the time for the burial of Maulana Abdur Rashid Ghazi, ISPR chief Maj- Gen Waheed Arshad said Wednesday that Ghazi's detained brother Maulana Abdul Aziz will attend the funeral at his native town. He told a press conference that the post mortem of Maulana Ghazi has been conducted and the relatives of the deceased have been contacted. The body will be taken to his native town. <b>About the dead body of the mother of Maulana Rashid Ghazi, he said it has not been identified as yet. About the wife of Maulana Abdul Aziz, Umme-Hassan, he said that she was with the authorities.</b> Giving details of the operation, General Waheed Arshad said that 164 troops from the Special Services Group (SSG) took part in the operation and no other troops from Pak Army or the Rangers were engaged in the operation which will come to an end within a few hours. He said 10 army men including Colonel Haroon embraced martyrdom while 33 sustained injuries. About causalities in the compound, he said he would be able to give a firm count once the combing and clearing operation is over. <b>About the presence of foreign elements or members of banned religious groups in the Lal Masjid complex, he said the bodies were still lying in the compound and once these are collected only then they will be identified.</b> He said no incident of suicide attack took place during the whole operation.(Posted @ 21:05 PST)
From paki fora
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->BTW <b>people who live in this locality know that most people who go for prayer in LM are from ahle-sunnat-wul-jammat sect (also called brelvees by other sects) as was Moulana Abdulla father of Ghazi brothers</b>.
.....
I think one reason why there are no street protests is because politicians realise that a little more push and noise and emergency will be declared and they will have no chance to steal and plunder
....
<b> He mentioned that the over all mood in Pakistan is of support for Pakistani troops and their actions but unfortunately society is more polarized than ever before. Thank God that a lot more people are on pro action side than against it. It seems that Musharraf may have strengthened his position instead of weakening as some had expected.</b>
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can anyone explain what kind of sect they are talking?
<b>al-Qaida: Wage Holy War Against Pakistan</b><!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->CAIRO, Egypt (AP) - Al-Qaida's deputy leader issued a video Wednesday calling for Pakistanis to wage a holy war against their government in retaliation for the attack by Pakistan's army on the Red Mosque in Islamabad.
Ayman al-Zawahri's 4-minute, 24-second address focused entirely on the clashes between Islamic students and Pakistan's army at the mosque.
The video was released by al-Qaida's multimedia branch, as-Sahab. Its authenticity could not immediately be confirmed, but two U.S.-based terrorism monitoring groups also reported it.
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->http://geo.tv/geonews/details.asp?id=8722¶m=1
<b>Corpse of Rasheed Ghazi flown to Rojhan Mazari </b>
ISLAMABAD: The corpse of Maulana Abdul Rasheed Ghazi has been flown to Rojhan Mazari.
According to details, the dead body of Maulana Abdul Rasheed Ghazi has been flown by a helicopter to Rojhan mazari. <b>Maulana Abdul Aziz and other high officials have also left by helicopter with the corpse.</b>
It may be recalled that Maulana Abdul Aziz was arrested by the security force before the operation and he is now on seven-day remand.
On the other hand, preparations for the <b>funeral of Maulana Abdul Rasheed Ghazi are already being made in Rojhan Abdullah, an area of Rojhan Mazari in Balochistan.</b>
Four graves have been prepared in Rojhan Abdullah, which is the native place of Maulana Abdul Rasheed.
<b>Some of the relatives of Abdul Rasheed Ghazi and leaders of Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam (Sami-ul-Haq Group) â Maulana Habib-ur-Rehman Darkhasti and Maulana Hafeez - have already reached Rojhan Abdullah.</b>
Besides, a large number of people are being reached from<b> Rahimyar Khan, Sukkur and Dera Ghazi Khan.</b>
Sources said that there is no restriction on people for attending the namaz-e-janaza of Abdul Rasheed Ghazi.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-Mudy+Jul 11 2007, 10:43 PM-->QUOTE(Mudy @ Jul 11 2007, 10:43 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->Nareshji,
Any news?
Islam-a-bad se La-whore, all fundos are silent after 'operation silent'. Looks like image of fundoos are over hyped.
[right][snapback]71089[/snapback][/right]
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<b>Mudy Ji :</b>
It is strange tht the Mullahs are blaming their woes on the USA rather than China.
This is strange as the Lal Masjid attck was carried out under China's Orders.
The strong action on the Lal Masjid has, in my opinion, made the Mullahs rethink their Strategy as at the moment the Pakistani People have started supporting Mush the Tush crediting him for stand up to the Mullahs.
Meantime here is a bit of grumbling from the Mullahs :
RAWALPINDI - Wafaqul Madaris Al-Arabia Pakistan announced country-wide protest on July 13 to condemn the Lal Masjid and Jamia Hafsa operation, while it also announced schedule for Tahafuz-i-Madaris (save seminaries) Convention in six big cities of the country, including the Federal Capital.
These decisions were taken in an emergency meeting of the Central Executive Council of the Wafaq held here at Jamia Islamia Kashmir Road Rawalpindi Sadr on Wednesday morning under the chairmanship of President Wafaqul Madaris Sheikhul Hadis Maulana Saleemullah Khan.
Other prominent participants of the meeting were Nazim-i-Aala Qari Mohammad Hanif Jalanderi, Vice-President Dr Abdul Razaq Sikandar, Maulana Zahidul Rashidi, Maulana Anwarul Haq, Maulana Saeed Yousaf, Mufti Kafait Ullah, Mufti Qari Saeedur Rehman, Maulana Zahoor Ahmad Alvi, Maulana Mohammad Nazir Farooqi and a dozen of other religious scholars.
In a post-meeting press conference, Qari Mohammad Hanif Jalanderi said that the meeting had condemned the military operation at Lal Masjid and Jamia Hafsa in which hundreds of innocent children were killed.
<b>He also gave a country-wide protest call for July 13 where Ulema all over the country would condemn the Lal Masjid operation in their Juma sermons and would bring out peaceful protest demonstrations to register their concern over the killing of innocent people in Lal Masjid Operation.</b>
He also announced holding of Tahafuz-i-Madaris Conventions in six cities, including Lahore on July 16, Islamabad in July 19, Peshawar July 26, Muzaffarabad July 28, Karachi August 2, and in Quetta on August 9.
The meeting also decided to constitute a committee to examine the whole operation which would submit a report to the executive council about its finding.
A couple of facilitation centers would also be established at Jamia Farooqia Rawalpindi and Jamia Mohammadia Islamabad to provide assistance to the parents whose children were enrolled at Jamia Hafsa.
The meeting also demanded of the Federal Government and law enforcing agencies to provide them with all details of the students who were killed during the operation and those who were in their custody so that their parents could be provided with proper information about their whereabouts.
It was also demanded that the dead bodies of Maulana Abdul Rashid Ghazi and his mother be handed over to their relatives and buried in the Federal Capital not his native village according to his own will.
<b>Holding President Gen Pervez Musharraf responsible for the deadlock in negotiations, Qari Mohammad Hanif Jalandari said the meeting believed that the decision of military operation was taken by President a few days before it was launched and that was the reason why the dialogue with Lal Masjid administration was sabotaged at last stage by the authorities, he alleged.
To a question he said that the number of dead were much more than the figure being given by the authorities. He questioned why they (Army) had asked for 800 coffins and 300 cloth sheets from Edhi when they already have coffins and sheets. He said that he did not know the exact number of the persons killed in the operation but surely they were in hundreds, he added.</b>
The meeting also demanded construction of all the razed mosques and action against obscenity and vulgarity in the Federal Capital and sincere efforts for enforcement of Sharia in the country.
The meeting also expressed concern over Prime Minister Shaukat Azizâs statement regarding the religious seminaries and vowed not compromise the freedom and independence of religious educational institutions in the country.
Meantime I think China is marking time as it is quite possible that the Mullahs direct their ire at China and then who knows what might happen.
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