The Perilous Vote

Yesterday, Islamists voted with gunfire and a suicide bomber. They assassinated Benazir Bhutto in the hopes of eliminating a threat to their entrenched comfort in Pakistan and the lawless border regions with Afghanistan. Bhutto's followers also voted yesterday - in rioting and standing firm in their convictions, they too sent a message. They will hold fast against Musharraf and the Islamists. Her supporters believe that Musharraf was behind her assassination, whether by actively engaging in the plot, or by not doing nearly enough to insure her security.

In Jacobabad, protesters set fire to shops belonging to the family members of interim premier Mohammedmian Soomro. Protesters torched buildings, trucks and shops, blocked roads and uprooted railway tracks. Shots rang out in a number of cities.

Banks and train stations were set ablaze, officials said.

Violent mobs burned 10 railway stations and several trains across Sindh province, forcing the suspension of all train services between Karachi and Punjab province, said Mir Mohammed Khaskheli, a senior railroad official.
A section of the track leading to the Indian border was also uprooted, he added.

A mob in Karachi looted three banks and set them on fire, police said.

About 7,000 people in Multan ransacked seven banks and a gas station and threw stones at police, who responded with the firing of tear gas shells. In Islamabad, about 100 protesters burned tyres in a commercial quarter of the city.

While al Qaeda has taken responsibility for the attacks, it almost doesn't matter which Islamist terrorist group was responsible because they're all cut from the same cloth. Indeed, there's a laundry list of groups that sought her death. They are all misogynist in nature, all seek to force all others to submit to their brand of Islam, and will commit heinous crimes and slaughter civilians by the score to achieve their goals.

Bill Roggio notes the following about al Qaeda and their purported responsibility:

"It is believed that the decision to kill Bhutto, who is the leader of the opposition Pakistan People's Party (PPP), was made by al-Qaeda No. 2, the Egyptian doctor, Ayman al-Zawahiri in October," Mr. Shahzad also reported. "Death squads were allegedly constituted for the mission and ultimately one cell comprising a defunct Lashkar-i-Jhangvi’s Punjabi volunteer succeeded in killing Bhutto."

Mustafa Abu al Yazid has long been the leader of al Qaeda in Afghanistan. In May, Yazid was officially appointed al Qaeda's military commander in Afghanistan.

The Lashkar-e-Jhangavi and other indigenous Pakistani terror groups such as Jaish-e-Mohammned and Lashkar-e-Taiba (which is now Jamaatud Dawa) essentially serve as muscle for al Qaeda in Pakistan.

Based on the sophistication of the Bhutto assassination, al Qaeda and the Taliban were very likely assisted by infiltrators and sympathizers in the Pakistani military and Inter Services Intelligence agency.

This latter issue has been the key problem for Musharraf all along. The military and ISI has been penetrated by the Islamists for years, and there's been little done to reverse that trend. It's extremely worrisome given Pakistan's nuclear capabilities.

The New York Times provides analysis that is little more than stating the obvious (gee, you think that his future appears as anything but troubled?). Musharraf has been skating on thin ice for years, and has been playing a dangerous game with the Islamists by alternatively appeasing and cracking down on various groups. He's done just enough to remain in power, which is likely to be his continued modus operandi. If the Lal Masjid episode didn't spur Musharraf to finally and thoroughly crack down on the Islamists, despite their direct threat to Musharraf, assassinating a rival in Benazir Bhutto isn't going to change things either.

UPDATE:
Bhutto was buried in Sindh, in the family's mausoleum, next to her father.

As of now, the January 8 elections are still on. Musharraf for his part says that he's going forward with the elections. What other choice does he have? Damned if he does, damned if he cancels them.

UPDATE:
Arnaud de Borchgrave, a journalist who was close to Bhutto, had this to say about the situation:

The more chaos the better for these people. Benazir Bhutto knew that we could not possibly succeed in Afghanistan until that border between Afghanistan and Pakistan was brought back under government control. It is now under al-Qaida and Taliban control, with the army in effect having been defeated there. They’ve lost over 1,000 with 3,000 injured — it was a very unpopular campaign in the federally administered tribal areas on the border because they’ve always been free of any kind of army interference ever since independence.

Sixty years ago it was agreed that the army would stay out of the federally administered tribal areas.

On both sides of the border these tribes are the same: Pashtun tribes on both sides of the border. They don’t recognize the Durant line which is the artificial border created by British colonialism in 1893. That border is not recognized by an awful lot of people — mostly political religious fundamentalist extremists.

The situation in Pakistan is sure to spill over into Afghanistan, which is something that Bhutto recognized, and which will continue to threaten the US mission in Afghanistan. The lawlessness along the border goes back to the founding of Pakistan, which means it's an entrenched issue that pits tribal alliances on both sides of the border with the Pakistani government, which has thus far been incapable of dealing with the Taliban and Islamist threat emanating from the region.

UPDATE:
Jammie has more on the possibility that rogue military forces were involved in the assassination.

UPDATE:
Pakistanis living in New Jersey are justifiably concerned about the events in Pakistan. The death toll is now 19 from the ongoing rioting.

UPDATE:
Yesterday definitely wasn't a good day for the Bush Administration as Sec. State Rice was behind brokering the deal that enabled Bhutto to return to Pakistan in the first place. The thinking was that she would provide a bulwark against the Islamists in the NWFP, Swat, and Warizistan, and do far more against the Islamists than Musharraf had been capable of doing. Wishful thinking at best.

UPDATE:
Andy McCarthy pulls no punches on the situation in Pakistan.

UPDATE:
Ralph Peters doesn't pull punches about Bhutto. The Pakistanis have announced that they've intercepted communications that link al Qaeda to the assassination, although the group that actually carried it out is Lashkar e-Jhangvi, who received congrats from Taliban thug Mehsud.

Meanwhile, questions will swirl about Bhutto's cause of death. While there was speculation and reports that she was killed by gunfire, today's reports suggest she was killed by blunt force trauma - not gunshots. No autopsy was conducted.

UPDATE:
Let's just say I'm not totally comforted when I hear the Pentagon claim that the Pakistani nuclear weapons are secure.

Pakistan's nuclear weapons arsenal is secure despite political turmoil after the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, the Pentagon said on Friday.

"Our assessment is that the Pakistani nuclear arsenal is under control," said Pentagon spokesman Col. Gary Keck. "At this time, we have no need for concern."

Our intel has been wrong on so many issues in the past few years, that they could be wrong here as well. I'll remain concerned, unless we learn that the US has operational control of those weapons and that the jihadis can't get their grubby hands on them.

Keep that in mind as Sec. Def. Gates says that al Qaeda has regroups along the Afghan-Pakistani border.

Meanwhile, a new video has surfaced of the assassination. Bhutto's followers aren't buying the latest official version and cause of death, so expect the conspiracy theories to persist even as media outlets go over the videos as if they were the Zapruder film. To my eye, it looks like there's a muzzle flash just moments before the bomb blast as the video ends, which would confirm reports of gunfire preceding the bomb.

UPDATE:
The Pakistanis have released photos and xrays claiming to show the some of the injuries sustained by Bhutto, along with the condition of the vehicle in which she was riding (via HuffPo). Hot Air has more, including more analysis on the varying accounts of what happened.

The Rest of the Story

Yesterday, a new video from Osama bin Laden was released. Well, it wasn't exactly a new video so much as the release of a segment that never aired from an old video. Jim Hoft at Gateway Pundit was able to make the match.

However, that's not the most intriguing news relating to al Qaeda from yesterday. It's the possibility that Zawahiri was behind the Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) siege.

Al Qaeda's leadership secretly directed the Islamic militants whose armed revolt at the Red Mosque in Islamabad ended last week with more than 100 deaths after it was stormed by the Pakistan army.

According to senior intelligence officials, the troops who finally took control discovered letters from Osama Bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri. They were written to Abdul Rashid Ghazi and Abdul Aziz, the brothers who ran the mosque and adjacent madrasah.

Government sources said up to 18 foreign fighters — including Uzbeks, Egyptians and several Afghans — had arrived weeks before the final shootout and set up firing ranges to teach students, including children, how to handle weapons.

Al-Qaeda has wanted to open a Pakistan front in its global jihad since President Pervez Musharraf sided with America after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

Al Qaeda has been looking to expand the front against the West, and opening a front in Pakistan would greatly aid their efforts as their former sanctuary in Afghanistan is a killing field for Taliban and al Qaeda. Iraq is similarly a killing zone for jihadis. Right now, we've got circumstantial evidence that al Qaeda was precipitating the siege in the hopes of getting Islamists in Pakistan to rise up against Musharraf. There are also reports that at least five foreign jihadis were among the dead recovered inside the mosque.

Jim also suggests that a warning might have been embedded in one of the latest Zawahiri messages, based on the repeated use of a phrase that essentially acts as a warning:

"Have I not conveyed? Oh God be my witness.
Have I not conveyed? Oh God be my witness.
Have I not conveyed? Oh God be my witness."

The warning is repeated 3 times. Under Islamic Law you are obliged to warn your enemies three times before you carry out an attack on them.
Notice that Osama repeats his martyr line 3 times in the video released today as well.

It is entirely possible that this was a message from beyond for Osama, given that we're now into recycled snippets or outtakes of Osama videos previously released.

Osama could have prepared videos for another mass casualty attack or two around the world, which could be released if those attacks were successful, giving the appearance that he was still around and directing things. Other segments could have been taped to be used as go-codes or to rally the troops. Without a body, there's simply no way to know, but the fact that he hasn't released a new video is suggestive that he's well and truly dead, but the videos could still be used to unleash carnage, which is why the videos need to be evaluated and dissected for hidden messages and content.

UPDATE:
The NY Times reports there simply isn't a whole lot of support for the jihadis inside Pakistan, though I'm concerned that it wouldn't take much to assassinate Musharraf or cause a major conflict inside Pakistan given that Warizistan is still largely in Islamist hands and al Qaeda has been able to regroup there.

UPDATE:
Well, this is the second significant suicide bombing in two days in Pakistan. 31 people were killed in separate attacks, including one that targeted a bus.

The Islamists Strike Back Against Pakistani Military

The Islamists, none too happy about Pervez Musharraf's decision to storm the Islamist stronghold in the Lal Masjid, have taken up arms and are going to counter the Pakistani offensive against the Islamists in Warizistan. 24 Pakistani soldiers were killed in a suicide bombing of a convoy:

Islamic militants launched a deadly suicide attack, detonated a roadside bomb and fired rockets on Saturday as thousands of Pakistani troops deployed to the northwestern frontier to thwart the launch of a holy war, officials said.

At least 24 soldiers were killed in the suicide attack on a military convoy, an army spokesman said. The escalating violence along the rugged Afghanistan border, a haven for local and foreign extremists, follows the government's bloody attack on Islamabad's Red Mosque which sparked calls for revenge from radical groups.

''With help from local tribal elders, we are trying to ensure that militants lay down their arms and stop issuing calls for jihad against the government,'' a senior military official said on condition of anonymity, because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Maulana Fazlullah, a radical cleric who has close links to the outlawed Movement for the Enforcement of Islamic Law, has told supporters to prepare for jihad against President Gen. Pervez Musharaff for the assault, the official said.

Pakistan commandos overran the mosque Wednesday, after an eight-day siege with a hard-line cleric and his militant supporters among more than 100 dead.

Musharraf's Gambit

While Pakistanis are trying to sort out just how many people were killed and injured in the Lal Masjid siege, Musharraf is not waiting for the dust to settle after declaring that he would no longer tolerate the Islamists in his country and vowed to eliminate them. He's in the fight for his life.

Musharraf has sent 12,000 troops in to the Warizstan region, which has long been a hotbed of Islamists, Taliban and al Qaeda sympathizers.

Fighting continues around Pakistan as well.

In actuality, this is just the prelude to Musharraf's latest gambit. He had hoped to buy off the Taliban and Islamists by granting them semi autonomy, but the Islamists saw this as a sign of weakness and moved to impose Sharia on Islamabad, the capital, from their base of operations at the Lal Masjid.

Having failed to buy them off, he's realized that he's going to have to fight his way through.

The Jihad Blotter

So, what is one supposed to make of the report that al Qaeda has rebuilt its capabilities to a level not seen since before 9/11? Well, consider first that this information was published as a result of a leak of classified information to a journalist. Is this report accurate and on the mark? The intelligence agencies haven't exactly had a sterling record on predicting what would happen on high profile issues in the past, and I wonder whether they're right in this case.

Is it possible that they're engaging in a bit of CYA in order to present the worst case scenario just in case something does happen that they did not anticipate - a terror plot that they did not have any clue about?

With that in mind, is this the worst case scenario to be offered in the National Intelligence Estimate, the middle case, or the best case? That's important, since the NIE presents a range of intel opinions. If this is the worst case scenario, what is the best case option? Have we destroyed al Qaeda's capabilities by 75%? 50%? 25%? What's the middle scenario? That's a pretty important question that is unresolved because the NIE is not a public document and we've only been fed one part of the whole.

Accepting this at face value, how is this actually possible? What could possibly have happened that enabled al Qaeda to reconstitute itself? Was it Democrats and anti-war leftists providing talking points to al Qaeda and calling for defeat and retreat from the field of battle - both in Afghanistan and Iraq? That may play a role, but the far more serious problem is what is going on in Pakistan. Musharraf had basically decided to leave the border region with Afghanistan alone, and made deals with the border tribes.

A counterterrorism official familiar with a five-page summary of the document — titled "Al-Qaida better positioned to strike the West" — called it a stark appraisal. The analysis will be part of a broader meeting at the White House on Thursday about an upcoming National Intelligence Estimate.

The official and others spoke to The Associated Press on condition they not be identified because the report remains classified.

The findings suggests that the network that launched the most devastating terror attack on U.S. soil has been able to regroup despite nearly six years of bombings, war and other tactics aimed at dismantling it.

The threat assessment focuses on the terror group's safe haven in Pakistan and makes a range of observations about the threat posed to the United States and its allies, officials said.

Those deals left the region unpoliced and al Qaeda and Taliban and the Islamists in general were able to flourish and reconstitute themselves there. The Lal Masjid siege showed the ultimate folly of appeasement and forced Musharraf to adopt a hard line position against al Qaeda and the Islamists, which in turn forced Zawahiri to release yet another tape in the past week that calls for jihad against Pakistan and Musharraf. That's not a coincidence.

UPDATE:
Musharraf has responded to Zawahiri is very strong terms. He's promised to eradicate the Islamists. Well, I'd start with the region adjacent to Afghanistan, and if the US asks to send its forces into that area to go after al Qaeda, let them and give them all the support they ask for. It's in his best interests as you have to believe that the Islamists are likely to try assassinating Musharraf at the earliest possible opportunity to thwart his efforts:

President Pervez Musharraf says he is determined that extremism and terrorism will be eradicated in Pakistan.
He was speaking in a televised address to the nation after officials said 75 bodies had been found at the radical Red Mosque in Islamabad.

Troops launched a 36 hour attack on the mosque early on Tuesday to flush extremists out of the mosque complex.

For months clerics and students had been defying the authorities in their campaign for Sharia law in the capital.

Students had kidnapped police as well as Islamabad residents they considered to be engaged in un-Islamic activity.

UPDATE:
Congress can't help themselves.

Not quite party line, but almost. Four Republicans voted yes, 10 Dems voted no. It’s the Reed-Levin plan in essence: withdrawal to begin within 120 days of passage and to conclude by April 1, with a small combat force retained in country to target Al Qaeda plus advisors to train the Iraqi army. It’s also a non-starter since Bush has vowed to veto any plan that involves a timetable.

They keep voting for cut and run aka defeat and retreat at every turn, knowing full well that the President will veto any such bill presented to him, and his veto will survive any attempts. Democrats are playing politics with national security. Pure and simple.

They also have paid lip service to the troop surge, which is still coming to bear on al Qaeda and the insurgency, and are more than willing to pull the rug out from under Gen. Petraeus and the US Armed Forces. They are also more than willing to cut and run, leaving millions to a fate that is uncertain at best but all too likely to end in genocidal massacres if history is a guide.

Lal Masjid Military Operation Continues

We're into day two of the military operation to clear the Lal masjid mosque in Islamabad of militants. There has been strong resistance from the militants inside who have barricaded themselves into rooms underneath the mosque. Heavy casualties are expected.

A commando raid that was expected to be a quick operation to subdue Islamic radicals in the Red Mosque turned into a marathon battle Tuesday and Wednesday, with elite Pakistani forces sweeping through underground bunkers in nearly two days of intense combat.

By late Wednesday afternoon local time, Pakistani forces were combatting as many as 30 armed militants still holed up within the mosque compound.

Military officials said the fighting left at least nine commandos and at least 50 radicals dead -- including the firebrand cleric at the center of the standoff. But they also suggested the toll might ultimately prove far higher. Among the hundreds of people estimated to be in the mosque when the raid began, only 86 have made it out alive so far -- most of them women and children, but including some civilians who were rescued and some militants who were wounded or captured.

At least 10 security forces have been killed and 33 injured. There's no clue as to what the final toll will be, but it may be quite significant. For good background on the mosque and the situation in Islamabad that led up to the siege, see Pakistaniat.

The US issued a statement regretting the loss of life, but pinned those deaths on the militants inside the mosque. Predictably, Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood wasn't so supportive:

Jordan's Muslim Brotherhood on Tuesday condemned the Pakistani army's dawn raid on a pro-Taliban mosque in Islamabad, describing the assault in which at least 58 people were killed as dangerous and unprecedented.

“The movement condemns the killings and violation of the mosque's sanctity,” Salem Falahat, leader of the country's largest opposition grouping, told AFP.

“Pakistan undermined the lives of innocent people, which is dangerous and unprecedented. The government should have given more time to the besieged people inside the mosque.” Falahat accused Pakistan of “trying to win the satisfaction of the United States.“Pakistan should reject external meddling in its affairs under the pretext of fighting terrorism,” he said.

As anyone following this page should know, the Muslim Brotherhood is the organization from which grew such terrorist organizations including Hamas and al Qaeda. They are Islamists to the core and are not afraid to use violence when the need arises. They're likely concerned that Musharraf will do unto the thugs in Lal Masjid that Assad did to the Brotherhood in Hama, Syria; crush and eliminate the threat - killing thousands of supporters in the process.

UPDATE:
Reports now indicate the fighting has indeed stopped. However, there is no information about the extent of casualties and what else was found inside the mosque compound.

"The first phase of the operation is over. There are no more militants left inside," Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad said in a telephone interview.

He said that the compound was still being combed for mines, booby traps and other weaponry.

Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said that no dead women and children had been found inside the sprawling complex and the probability of finding bodies during the clearing operation was low.

For the Prime Minister's sake, I hope that remains the case, because sentiment might change against the Musharraf government if it turns out that women and children were killed in the course of the siege.

UPDATE:
Other reports are more circumspect as to the number of casualties as the numbers wont be known until the entire complex is searched and cleared of traps and explosives.

UPDATE:
Gaius wonders why folks are not calling Ghazi what he was - a coward for hiding behind women and children, and putting hundreds and perhaps thousands at risk of injury or death because he sought to impose Sharia on all.

UPDATE:
Did high value targets manage to escape the compound using tunnels dug under the compound? Did Ghazi die in order to give those individuals a chance to escape? One tunnel was apparently discovered linking the mosque to the madrassa next door, but both are within the same compound so security forces do not believe that those inside could have escaped. Those and other issues will need to be addressed by Musharraf in coming weeks as they have to wrap their hands around the issue.

Watch for the possibility that other Islamist groups take to the streets:

Meanwhile, the six party Islamist Parties Alliance (IPA) staged a demonstration in Peshawar over the Lal Masjid conflagration.

Liaqat Baloch, a parliamentarian of the Jamaat-e-Islami, described "Operation Silence" as a misnomer, adding that it was "basically" a bloody continuation of an attempt to undermine the decisions of the Jirga convened recently by the Federally Administered Tribal Arear (FATA).

Samya Raheel Qazi, another member of the party, was quoted by a foreign news agency as saying that it was a huge tragedy, and queried why none had protested.

Pakistani officials were said to be procuring body bags to remove the dead bodies from the Lal Masjid complex, even as paramilitaries continued patrolling the area.

Medical staffs were moving body bags into ambulances. The final death toll is still unknown as mopping-up operations continue.

The curfew in Islamabad's G-6 area would remain in force till further orders, the capital administration said.

UPDATE:
Zawahiri has been quite busy producing videos of late. He's done three in the past week alone, and today's video calls on Islamists to make jihad against Pakistan and Musharraf for his actions against the Lal Masjid. Laura Mansfield has the text.

Lal Masjid Stormed

The assault on the Lal Masjid compound began yesterday and reports continue to come in on what has happened. The Times reports that 50 militants were killed thus far. Eight soldiers were also killed.

Commandos stormed the sprawling mosque compound before dawn, and 10 hours later were still trying to root out the well-armed defenders said to be holding a number of hostages.

Khalid Pervez, the city's top administrator, said as many as 50 women were the first to be freed by the militants and had emerged from the complex following the escape of 26 children.

Mohammed Khalid Jamil, a reporter for the local Aaj television network, was among journalists who said they saw dozens of women and girls walking on a road away from the mosque. They were wearing burqas, he said.

A military official who demanded anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press, said the women included the wife and daughter of Abdul Aziz, the former head of the mosque who was arrested while trying to flee the complex last week.

The numbers involved thus far do not appear to jibe with what prior reports had indicated. As I've noted over the past few days, reports indicated anywhere from about 100 to nearly 1,000 people in the compound, and an interdeterminate number of militants, terrorists, and jihadis among them. It wasn't clear how many were there willingly and how many were being kept against their will. Even now, we don't know what is really going on as the Pakistani government has kept the journalists at arms' length from the scene. CNN reports that there are about 300 hostages still inside the compound along with 40 to 60 hardcore Islamists, though they aren't even sure of that:

Ghazi claimed more than 300 people have been killed since Tuesday, but an interior ministry spokesman said the ministry completely rejects that claim.

The violence began Tuesday when about 150 militant Islamic students attacked a police checkpoint close to the mosque. Street clashes quickly erupted, with police firing tear gas at the students and the students fighting back with guns and sticks. They then took refuge in the mosque and an adjoining women's seminary, which the troops subsequently surrounded.

More than 1,200 people, mainly students from the mosque's two Islamic schools, have already fled the compound, but officials don't know exactly how many remain.

Ghazi has said there are 1,900 still in the compound. Meanwhile his brother, Maulana Abdul Aziz, said there are only about 850 inside. Other intelligence sources have told CNN that there are about 800 to 900.

Aziz, the top cleric at the Red Mosque, was captured Wednesday while trying to slip out of the mosque disguised in a burqa -- the head-to-toe covering worn by some Muslim women.

The conflict between the Islamists inside the mosque and the government appears to have spread as supporters of the Islamists in the Lal Masjid have blocked the Silk Road and have taken up arms:

'Dozens of armed men have taken positions on the mountains along the Silk Route near Batagram, while hundreds of students from Islamic seminary have blocked the highway,' police assistant sub-inspector Attiq-ur-Rehman said.

He said the students were enraged over several deaths in the military attack on the mosque in Islamabad to end a week-long standoff, which began when student zealots attacked a police post last Tuesday.

Lal Masjid militants have received some support from extremist groups in the country, although public sentiment in general remained against them.

Around 20,000 tribesmen, many armed with rocket launchers and automatic weapons in the tribal Bajaur region bordering Afghanistan, protested against the siege of the mosque on Monday, burning effigies of President Musharraf.

Several leaders of local Taliban militia also joined the rally, where speakers warned they would declare jihad on the government if it continued the siege on the mosque.

All Things Pakistan continues to track the unfolding situation.

UPDATE:
I am rather curious why this story isn't bigger news considering that it involves a possible mass casualty event, hundreds (or thousands) of hostages, Islamists, terrorists, jihadis, and could spawn violence throughout Pakistan. You'd think the geopolitical ramifications of this would be lead news in various outlets, but it seems that other news is more pressing.

UPDATE:
Here's an eyewitness account from a hospital that has views of the mosque compound.

All 700 beds were cleared in 20 minutes. We only left some of the patients with heavy complications. We've been on red alert since then and we've been treating injured people for days.

We started receiving casualties since Tuesday, the first day. Our first casualty was a ranger officer, he was shot dead. Most of the others were girls suffering from suffocation or from tear gas. We had around 150 to 200 only on the first day only. They were all fine in the end.

We have so far received 26 gunshot victims, but of course this is only in our hospital and the real number is much higher.

Yesterday I was on night duty. I was having a quick nap, when I was woken up at 0420 (2320 BST) by a huge blast. The windows were trembling.

Since then there's been non-stop firing of heavy machine guns. You can tell by the sound that there's been very heavy fighting. We also hear rocket-propelled grenades. Since this morning they have been using heavy equipment.

Military casualties are being taken to a military hospital 30km away, while other hospitals are taking other casualties.

Islamist leader Abdul Rashid Ghazi, Aziz's brother, was among those killed in the fighting today. It's not clear how he died. Aziz was captured trying to escape the mosque wearing a burqa.

UPDATE:
Security forces are taking their time going through the compound because of booby traps, but the number of those killed is sure to rise much higher:

Army spokesman General Waheed Arshad said: "Militants are taking positions in almost every room, they're fighting from room-to-room, they have positions in the basement."

"There are women and children who are in the complex and we are taking a step-by-step approach to ensure there's no collateral damage unnecessarily," he added.

A witness said those inside the compound were under "massive bombing and gunfire. This is indiscriminate killing ... There are dead bodies everywhere".

At this point, there's no way to know whether those killed are innocents or the thugs holding the hostages.

UPDATE:
The Pakistani security forces had been considering several different methods of breaching and entering the Lal masjid complex. Apparently, they chose not to use nerve agents to incapacitate those inside. Still no updates that can be verified as to casualties involved, but the Times reports the following:

Today, a military spokesman said that after 10 hours of fighting, 8 security forces and roughly 50 presumed militants were dead.

Roughly two dozen children, whom the army said were being held hostage, escaped.

Another 29 troops and special forces were injured, the military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad, told reporters at a press briefing near the Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque. The spokesman said 50 men and 27 women had been captured, including 13 who were wounded in the battles.

Among them were the wife and daughter of one of the main leaders of the mosque.

I suspect the toll is much higher than that, as literally hundreds remain unaccounted for if the earlier figures were accurate as to how many were inside the complex.

UPDATE:
Bill Roggio is reporting over 100 dead in the Lal Masjid storming by Pakistani security forces.

The Pakistani government confirmed Ghazi was killed in the fighting, however his body has not been recovered. "He was spotted in the basement and asked to come out. He came out with four or five militants who kept on firing at security forces," said Brigadier Javed Cheema, a spokesman for the Inter Services Public Relation branch. "The troops responded and in the crossfire he was killed ... There are still certain areas to be cleared. The body is in the compound. The other militants were also killed in the fighting."

Ghazi's wife and daughter were captured alive in the mosque, along with 27 women. At least 27 children and emerged from the fighting unharmed. Another 50 students of the mosque have been captured.

Commandos of the Special Service Group, backed by the elite 111 Brigade of the Pakistani Army, the Pakistani Rangers and the Islamabad police launched the final assault on the Red mosque after negotiations broke down late Monday evening. Eight members of the security forces have been killed in the fighting so far, including a captain.

UPDATE:


UPDATE:
The die is cast. Musharraf is siding with the West:

Pakistan must unite to defeat extremism, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said after an army raid on the capital's Red Mosque left more than 50 militants dead.

Military force was the only way to end the standoff at the mosque, which was a ``hub of terrorist activity,'' the official Associated Press of Pakistan cited him as saying late yesterday.

``Let us resolve that we shall rid Pakistan of all forms of extremism,'' Aziz said, adding the militants brought a bad name to Islam.

The mosque siege has increased pressure on President Pervez Musharraf, who is criticized by Islamic parties in the world's second largest Muslim nation for supporting the U.S.-led campaign against terrorism. Pakistani military action against Taliban and al-Qaeda gunmen in tribal areas bordering Afghanistan since 2003 has sparked protests against his government.

The Times of India notes that there are clerics who justify the storming of the mosque, but others worry that it will only strengthen the jihadis.

Expect quite a bit of rumors and conspiracies to swirl around the storming and how the government acted through the crisis. Some will inevitably point fingers at US assistance, though that is denied. Some think Ghazi was murdered.


Others blogging the siege and subsequent elimination of the militants at the mosque: Hot Air, Jihad Watch, Global Voices, TMQ2, Ali Eteraz, and Ace.

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.

Lal Masjid Siege Continues

Senior Taliban leaders were nabbed by Pakistan, including two close to Mullah Omar himself.

Perhaps the Lal Masjid mosque crisis has focused the mind of Musharraf to deal with the ongoing threat posed by the Taliban, al Qaeda, and the Islamists in his country. Nothing like a crisis to focus the mind and attention. We're in day six of the crisis and Musharraf is directing the Pakistani military to go after other Islamist groups as well.

The Government has decided to launch a massive operation against the banned Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat Mohammadi (TNSM) leader Maulana Fazalullah in the tribal Malakand agency of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), media reports said here.

Fazalullah is a close associate of Lal Masjid cleric Abdul Aziz, arrested while trying to sneak out from the besieged mosque in a burqa four days ago, and his younger brother Abdul Rashid Ghazi, who is leading the resistance.

Fresh deployment of troops started following an announcement of war against security forces by Fazalullah after the operation against Lal Masjid, the Post daily said.

The situation is alarmingly deteriorating in Swat district as most of the students of the madrassas affiliated to Lal Masjid are hailing from the region.

Also, after the security operation Fazaullah, through his illegally-run FM Radio, had issued a statement saying anyone who supported the crackdown was an 'infidel'. He called the religious leaders supporting the present government as "rebels of Islam".

Another Pakistani commando was killed in yesterday's operation to breach the perimeter of the mosque compound.

More than 1,200 people, mainly students from the mosque's two Islamic schools, have since fled the complex. Officials say up to 100 armed militants and an unknown number of students remain inside.

Troops have been trying to blast holes in the walls in the hopes that women and children inside will escape, but have held back from an all-out assault.

At least 20 people have been in killed in the siege, government officials say.

Gunfire and heavy explosions could be heard just after midnight Sunday and then sporadically throughout the dawn hours, punctuating the thunder of a fierce monsoon downpour. By midmorning Sunday, both the gunfire and rain had stopped.

Arshad said security forces have used explosives to blast six or seven holes in the perimeter walls of the embattled school and several people have escaped through them.

Three paramilitary troops were wounded on Saturday, he said.

Reports of the number of casualties in the ongoing siege vary wildly. Some put the figure in the hundreds, while the government says only 26 have been killed.

Yet, the thugs inside the mosque claim that they've got enough weapons to last a month. I'm sure that they could stockpile those weapons, but whether they'd get the opportunity to use them is a separate question.

UPDATE:
With all the claims about body counts, you have to wonder what is really going on, especially when the same militants inside the mosque have been calling for jihad and have said they wish to become martyrs. So, on the one hand, they complain when the military grants them their wish, and then on the other hand complains when their wish is granted.

UPDATE:
There have been ongoing reports that there were foreign fighters in the mosque compound, which might indicate al Qaeda or other aligned terrorists.

The BBC's Syed Shoaib Hasan, who is in Islamabad, says there are reports that militants from an outlawed radical Muslim organisation, Jaish-e-Mohammad, are in actual control inside the mosque.

Members of the group have been involved in several failed attempts on the life of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, and it has also been linked to al-Qaeda.

On Saturday, President Musharraf told the students they had no option but to surrender.

"We have been patient. I want to say to the ones who have been left inside: they should come out and surrender, and if they don't, I am saying this here and now: they will be killed," he said.

UPDATE:
One of the little wannabe martyrs is so pissed at her daddy right about now.

As a gun battle raged late on Friday, with snipers on the roof of the mosque forcing the army back to its lines 100 yards away, Khan, the father who had been pleading with his two daughters to leave, called them on their mobile phone and told them their mother was outside. She had been taken ill and lay unconscious on the pavement, he said.

It was a lie but it worked. The two girls quickly left the compound and found their waiting father in the crowd. “I’m taking them back to our village,” said Khan. “They were ready for martyrdom and they’re very angry with me. I’m just happy I’ve got my daughters back, and sorry for those whose daughters are still in there.”

Saima, in a bitter, fanatical voice that belied her 10 years, told The Sunday Times her father had cheated her of martyrdom. “The teachers taught us about martyrdom and that it is a great achievement,” she said.

“I could see the fighting was in front of me and I could understand that we would die. I felt real anger about what my father did. He tricked me.”

These kids are indoctrinated at an early age to hate and to die for their cause. They'll even hate their parents who want to see their kids grow up. Hot Air has much more, including the possibility that the Pakistani government timed the news on capturing the Taliban thugs to make it look like Aziz rolled on the Taliban.

UPDATE:
Others blogging the ongoing mess in Pakistan: Ali Eteraz, Smooth Stone, and Sweetness and Light.

Compare and Contrast

MSNBC is running a story about how a Hamas cameraman was shot and apparently needed to have both legs amputated. Hamas immediately blamed Israel for the incident, and Israel says there is no way to know who shot him and had no plans to investigate the matter. The usual suspects immediately rushed to blame Israel for the incident:

The International Federation of Journalists, in a statement from Brussels, Belgium, denounced Israel for what it said was “a vicious and brutal example of deliberate targeting of a journalist.”

Israeli army spokeswoman Maj. Avital Leibowitch said it was not clear who shot Imad Ghanem, 21, a cameraman for the Hamas-allied Al Aqsa TV, though she did not deny it could have been Israeli troops. There were no plans to investigate, she said.

Ghanem’s legs were amputated Thursday after he was brought to the hospital in critical condition, doctors said.

Leibowitch said the cameraman was a legitimate target because he was with the Hamas gunmen firing at Israeli forces, was separated from other journalists covering the clash, and could have been carrying a weapon.

The shooting was captured on film and broadcast on al-Jazeera satellite television, but the footage did not show who fired at Ghanem.

Palestinians have repeatedly attempted to use propaganda to turn world opinion against Israel, but we have repeatedly seen that such attempts are invented or take advantage of incomplete evidence. Of course, by the time facts are available to rebut the Palestinian claims, the media has moved on to the next claimed atrocity and the incidents take on the status of myth - repeated as fact when the reality is far different.

Why is MSNBC offering this up when there is more than ample opportunity to slam the members of the Lal Masjid mosque and Pakistani officials who put cameramen and journalists in harms' way. Where are the statements by the IFJ denouncing where journalists killed and injured at the Lal masjid mosque?

Lal Masjid Mosque Fighting Continues

The leader of the group remaining inside the mosque claims that the Pakistani forces have killed 70 of his followers. The government says only 19 were killed. Am I supposed to get worked up over this considering his repeated statements that they're willing to martyr themselves and have been firing back on Pakistani security forces since the crisis at the mosque started earlier this week?

These aren't unarmed civilians here, but rather armed thugs who have remained defiant and refuse to even accept a more than generous amnesty from Musharraf.

The Pakistani government continues to find it unacceptable that someone would try to form a state within a state and force their views on everyone else.

Pakistan's Federal Minister for Political Affairs Amir Muqam Saturday said it was not acceptable to the government that somebody formed a state within the state and imposed his views on others.

Speaking to the state-run PTV, Muqam said that it was unfortunate that some politicians were linking the issue of the Lal Masjid mosque to other political matters.

To a question, he said that the children imprisoned in the mosque were responsibility of the whole nation and the responsibility lay on the administration of Lal Masjid to resolve the issue.

The clerics in the mosque were to blame for the armed confrontation, he said, adding that parents of the children inside the mosque were worried for their safety.

Muqam said that the Aziz brothers had revealed their true face as they were working for their ulterior motives.

One almost gets the feeling that the Aziz brothers wouldn't mind if this situation turns into a Waco-like conflagration where the remaining people are killed in the hopes of becoming martyrs and their status would be cemented among like-minded individuals around the country to rise up against Musharraf and rage against the Western cultural creep.

For his part, Musharraf has taken a harder line, warning that the thugs inside the mosque must surrender or else they would die. That's a switch from yesterday's reports that the government would offer up amnesty. Perhaps the fact that the amnesty was poorly received by the mosque followers suggested that appeasement will get the Pakistani government nowhere.

Pakistani forces have raided a seminary aligned with the Lal Masjid mosque followers and taken dozens prisoner.

'Some fifty students of Jamia Faridia have been taken into custody in an advanced movement in the wake of Lal Majid stand off,' Zafar Iqbal, senior police superintendent, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

Jamia Faridia, a male seminary, is located in Islamabad's posh E-7 neighbourhood, some four kilometres from the red mosque complex where hundreds of rebellious students have been holed up for the last five days.

'Jamia Faridia is in our total control, and we did not face any resistance from the students,' Iqbal said.

The seminary was recently abandoned by more than 2,500 students after security forces with heavy military presence laid siege to the fortified compound of Lal Masjid early Wednesday.

Meanwhile, a heavy firefight continued early Saturday at the Red mosque and several blasts were heard.

Paramilitary forces fired several mortar shells into the seminary, where strong resistance was being offered by around several hundred warriors, many believed to be trained by al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters.

There's also reports that the Pakistani forces blew up the fuel supply of the Lal masjid mosque generators.

Two students were shot and killed by other thugs inside the mosque as they tried to surrender.

UPDATE:
Intense fire reported at the mosque. Are we witnessing the endgame? If those inside claim to want to become martyrs, the Pakistani military certainly seems more than willing to help them achieve that goal.

An intense fire erupted Saturday at the Red Mosque and madrassa where militants and security forces have been engaged in a six-day standoff, NBC News reported.

Pakistani military forces carried out an operation earlier, and walls and infrastructure of the compound have been damaged. No further details were available regarding casualties.

The fire comes hours after President Pervez Musharraf ordered the Islamist militants barricaded inside to surrender or die, while concern grew for hundreds of women and children inside the besieged compound in the Pakistani capital.

The problem is that this Waco-like end, if that indeed is what is happening, may spur others to the Taliban-like cause.

Bill Roggio notes that the Lal masjid supporters are taking on the government elsewhere in Pakistan.