Musharraf's Problems, And Ours

Pervez Musharraf is walking a tightrope with the Islamists in his own country. For far too long, his country tolerated the Taliban and al Qaeda who used the border area between Pakistan and Afghanistan to regroup and rearm for the Afghan campaign. With the current fight at the Lal masjid going on for a week and no end in sight, Musharraf is in a difficult position.

Fighting has spread to other parts of the country as sympathizers with Lal Masjid are fighting with security forces in the Northwest corner of the country.

More than 20,000 tribesmen, including masked militants carrying rifles, protested in the northwest region of Bajaur. Four security personnel were also reported abducted in Bajaur as hostages to force the government into allowing those still inside Lal Masjid a free passage out. This is one of the options Musharraf and his inner circle are considering.

They are undoubtedly concerned that should they clear the mosque in one final military attack, violence across the country will only increase. Already, scores - if not hundreds - of people have died in the mosque siege. Indeed, there is even talk of the unrest becoming so widespread that it would justify calling in North Atlantic Treaty Organization-led troops in Afghanistan to extend the "war on terror" into Pakistan territory.

For the al-Qaeda leadership sitting in the tribal areas, the situation is fast evolving into the promised battle of Khorasan. This includes parts of Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Tajikistan from where the Prophet Mohammed promised the "end of time" battle would start.

Jihadist circles clearly want to exploit the crisis to boost themselves as major players, and envisage even a share in the power in Islamabad.

Al Qaeda would most certainly benefit from such a scenario, and our concern must be on Pakistan's nuclear arsenal and large supply of weapons, which the terrorists could coopt. While we're supposed to be comforted by the fact that the nuclear weapons have special safeguards that inhibit terrorists from taking the weapons, the fact that they could gain access to them is a scenario with dire consequences.

Another ongoing concern is that Pakistan's ISI is thoroughly infiltrated by Islamists and purging that force of the extremist ideologues is still incomplete, as is the larger fight to shift Pakistan away from the Islamists towards a more secular environment. That is an ongoing threat to Musharraf.

When the military finally decided to crack down last week, the militants showed what they were really made of: They are using women as hostages. And one of their leaders, senior cleric Maulana Abdul Aziz, tried to sneak out of the compound in women's clothing, covered in a burqa and wearing high heels. For all of his past sermonizing on keeping the sexes separate, his attempted escape in drag revealed the underlying farce of Islamic holy war.

The mosque and its religious schools (madrassas) are a key part of Pakistan's long history of dealing with militant Islam, going back to its support of Islamic fighters against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and then the post-Soviet Taliban regime.

Since the Sept. 11 attacks, however, President Pervez Musharraf has tried to break the link between the military's intelligence services and Muslim radicals. The Red Mosque siege represents a firm, public stand by the government to weed out the militants before they threaten Pakistani society itself.

If Mr. Musharraf succeeds in ending the standoff with little bloodshed, the victory will send a strong message to anyone trying to turn Pakistan into "Talistan."

Apparently there was a plan to storm the compound, but the Pakistani authorities delayed the operation because of intel that was gathered by an UAV.

Military officials, who were on Sunday night given an all clear signal from President Pervez Musharraf to raid the complex, altered their strategy in light of the new information.

The UAV hovered over the Lal Masjid, where militants are holed up, for more than two hours last night and took pictures of the besieged mosque.

The plane recorded the images of people present at Lal Masjid and the girls madrassa, Jamia Hafsa and their movements.

In light of the information provided by the images, a new strategy against Lal Masjid has been adopted, Geo TV reported. The possible operation, which was to be carried out on Monday against Lal Masjid and Jamia Hafsa, has been postponed.

After a meeting with top military officials on Sunday night, Musharraf had given a clearance to storm the sprawling mosque and there was speculation that the operation will take place in the early hours. However, expect for sporadic firing, the situation remained the same.

During Sunday night's meeting, Musharraf was presented with three options - launch an air strike, gas the compound to render the inmates unconscious or launch ground assault. There was no word yet on which option was cleared and when the operation would be launched.

Hundreds have been arrested in sweeps relating to the mosque standoff. Meanwhile, the courts are injecting themselves into this security situation, and are claiming that they are doing so to save the lives of women and children being held in the mosque. The concern is that they're being used as human shields by the terrorists and jihadis inside the mosque compound.

Pakistan's top court on Monday intervened in the tense battle between government forces and Muslim militants at a besieged Islamabad mosque, saying it wanted to save the lives of women and children inside.

The court scheduled an afternoon hearing on whether it should dictate the government's security actions to avoid a bloody storming of Lal Masjid in the heart of the Pakistan capital, as president Pervez Musharraf has threatened.

A possible court intervention to overrule executive power, unique to the Pakistani judicial system, arose amid public outcry of concern for those inside the compound as well as for neighbours suffering the siege and curfew.

UPDATE:
This report indicates that eight high value terrorists are inside the mosque, and there are about 500 still inside the compound:

Eight “high value terrorists” wanted by Pakistan and other countries are holed up inside Lal Masjid, while another was killed by security forces in the ongoing operation, Religious Affairs Minister Ejazul Haq said on Sunday. “Nine suspected terrorists said to be far more dangerous and harmful than Al Qaeda and Taliban operatives were hiding inside the mosque compound,” Haq told a press conference here. He refused to reveal the identities of these militants.

He said that security forces killed one of these suspected terrorists inside Lal Masjid on the second day of the ongoing operation. He was the mastermind of the failed suicide attack on Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz in Attock in 2005, he said.

Haq said that the militants and not Abdul Rashid Ghazi, Lal Masjid’s deputy chief cleric, were controlling the mosque. “The militants are holding children and Ghazi hostage,” he said. He said that of those who had surrendered to the security forces, three girl students were still unclaimed. They were being kept at the Pakistan Sports Complex.

So, is it possible that as extreme as Ghazi and Aziz were, they're not sufficiently violent or Islamic enough for the thugs who are apparently running the show, and include members of Harkatul-Jihad-e-Islami (who was involved in the Daniel Pearl capture and beheading)? This could also explain why the Pakistani government became reluctant to act on its breaching operation.

Ghazi has apparently tried to hold a presser, but the Pakistani military has refused journalists access to the mosque, fearing that it could be a ruse to take more hostages.

UPDATE:
The latest attempt to talk the militants out of the mosque failed, and fighting has resumed at the mosque compound.

Pakistani forces launched an operation on Tuesday to clear militants from a mosque compound after talks to end a week-long standoff broke down, the military said.

"We launched an operation at 4 a.m. (2300 GMT) to clear the madrasa of militants," said military spokesman Major-General Waheed Arshad, referring to a religious school in the mosque compound.

A short while later he said troops had entered the compound of the Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, in Islamabad, and were coming under fire from the militants inside.

Troops have surrounded the compound since Tuesday last week when clashes between armed student radicals and government forces erupted outside the compound housing the Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, and a girl's religious school after months of tension.

UPDATE:
That photo at the top of the post is an aerial view of the mosque compound and gives you some idea of what faces the Pakistani military as they are apparently entering the compound to deal with the entrenched militants and Islamic terrorists.

UPDATE:
Thanos is running updates of the unfolding siege. There are also reports that Aziz's mother was among those killed in the fighting that erupted in the past few minutes.

UPDATE:
Still more on the heavy fighting in and around the mosque.

Huge blasts and heavy gunfire rocked the fortified pro-Taliban Red Mosque, where the government says hundreds of women and children are being held as human shields, sending large plumes of white smoke above the complex.

Around 20 children escaped from the mosque and were rescued by security forces, the military said. More than a dozen ambulances with sirens wailing were seen in nearby streets.

"It is a final push to clear the mosque of armed militants," military spokesman Major General Arshad Waheed told AFP, adding that he had no initial indication of casualties.

The military said troops had entered the building from three sides and were backed by armoured personnel carriers. The government has said around 100 militants were inside the compound along with 300-400 women and children.

"There is intense firing and a heavy engagement, the forces are making advances and the operation is progressing. It is a very complex operation, our effort is definitely to save lives," he said.

UPDATE:
The coverage is finally hitting the front pages of the big media outlets, but bloggers are all over this. CNN has it as the main story on the front page. The NYT is running an AP wire report. MSNBC has a story up about Iraq as its main page item, and the mosque siege is just below. FoxNews and Boston Globe have nothing.