Pakistani cleric defiant as militants battle troops

By Kamran Haider

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Heavy gunfire and explosions rocked Islamabad early on Saturday as Islamist students holed up in a mosque battled Pakistani security forces after the militants' leader defied government demands to surrender.

The fortified Lal Masjid or Red Mosque compound has been under siege by hundreds of troops and police since Tuesday when months of tensions boiled over into clashes between Muslim clerics and religious students and security forces. At least 19 people have been killed.

"We can die but we will not surrender. We're not terrorists," said Abdul Rashid Ghazi, chief cleric leading the militants told Reuters early on Saturday, speaking over the crack of rifle fire.

Smoke and the orange glow of fire rose from the mosque early on Saturday as heavy gunfire and explosions rocked the city. It was not immediately clear what was burning.

Water, gas and power to the mosque have been cut and food was said to be getting scarce.

Tension between authorities and religious leaders at the mosque had been rising since January when students, most of whom in their 20s and 30s, launched a campaign to press for action against what they see as vice.

They kidnapped people they accused of involvement in prostitution, intimidated shopkeepers selling Western videos and abducted policemen and threatened to unleash suicide bombers if they were suppressed.

Moderate politicians and the media had urged President Pervez Musharraf to intervene to end the standoff. Musharraf has not commented publicly on the siege but has urged security agencies to allow time for parents to take children out of a madrasa, or school, in the compound.

"ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT"

On Friday, gunmen fired from a roof-top under the flight path from Islamabad's military airport as Musharraf was flying off to inspect flood damage in the south.

An intelligence officer, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the shots were an unsuccessful attempt on the president's life. But the government said there appeared to be no link between the shooting and Musharraf's flight.

U.S. ally Musharraf survived two assassination attempts by al Qaeda-linked militants in 2003.

Adding to a sense of foreboding over risks posed to stability by militants in nuclear-armed Pakistan, a suicide bomber killed six soldiers on Friday in a northwest region where the Islamists in the mosque have allies.

Many Pakistanis welcomed the government's move against a movement reminiscent of the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan, and symptomatic of the religious extremism seeping into cities from tribal border areas.

Interior Ministry Secretary Syed Kamal Shah appealed to Ghazi to give up and said he would be treated humanely.