PAKISTAN: Thousands protest across Pakistan over army crackdown at radical mosque .

Islamists take to street on call for protests over Pakistan mosque assault. Hundreds of Pakistani Islamists took to streets on Friday (July 13) to denounce an army assault on a radical mosque in the capital Islamabad. A leader of an alliance of Pakistani religious parties condemned on Friday the attack which he described as the darkest chapter in the country's history, and called for protests. At least 75 supporters of hardline clerics were killed in Tuesday's commando assault on Islamabad's Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, which ended a week-long standoff between militants and the security forces. Ten soldiers were also killed. Protests against the assault on the mosque were held in different parts of the country after Friday prayers. Liaqat Baluch, a central leader of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) alliance of religious parties, told a rally of about 300 people in Lahore the bloodshed at Lal Masjid would lead to an Islamist revolution in Pakistan. Protesters burned effigies of President Pervez Musharraf and U.S. President George W. Bush and shouted "Long live the martyrs of Lal Masjid" and "Musharraf Killer". About 200 activists and supporters of MMA staged a protest after Friday prayer outside a mosque in the southern city of Karachi. The protesters chanted anti-Musharraf slogans. "Rulers have killed innocent children for their rule", said a placard. "Inquiry demanded into failure of negotiations by clerics", said a banner. "The Americans have given them this assignment; Do more, do more and kill more Pakistanis whom they call extremists, who call themselves Muslims, who Muslims? Practising Muslims. They are trying to kill them. So, it is their agenda, and our agenda is that we shall protest, we shall agitate, we shall be on street and our movement will continue," said Syed Munawwar Hassan, general secretary of Jamat-e-Islami which is a major component of MMA. Pakistani Islamists also rallied in Rawalpindi to denounce the government. Around 500 people belonging to various Islamist parties rallied in the garrison city of Rawalpindi, near the Pakistani capital Islamabad. "This is not a colony of America; this is not a colony of Bush. Hundreds of thousands of people have shed their blood for this country, have sacrificed their lives to bring an Islamic way of life here," Maulana Azizur Rehman, a local leader of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal told the protesters. "Revolution will come!" the crowd chanted. Musharraf, in an address to the nation on Thursday (July 12), spoke of his resolve to "eliminate terrorism and extremism from every nook and corner". Lal Masjid cleric Abdul Rashid Ghazi, who led his religious students on a drive to impose strict Islamic rule on the capital, was also killed on Tuesday (July 10) along with hardcore militants who had accumulated an arsenal of weapons and explosives in the complex. In Islamabad, an MMA deputy leader called on young men in a rally of around 200 people to protest, but he urged them not to carry guns, saying that would simply play into the hands of the government and its ally, the United States. The Lal Masjid radicals had turned their compound into a virtual fortress during a series of confrontations with the authorities over the last six months. It took the commandos more than 24 hours to eliminate the final pocket of resistance. The violence has focused attention on religious schools, or madrasas, some of which promote militancy. Musharraf vowed on Thursday that madrasas would not be allowed to spread militancy. Nearly 30 people were killed in bomb attacks targeting security forces in just over a week, three Chinese were shot on Sunday (July 8), and protesters ransacked offices and supplies of Western aid agencies working in a mountain town and villages. There were no reports of violence on Friday.

ITN Source | July 14, 2007

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