FACTBOX: Sieges at Muslim holy places

(Reuters) - Fears mounted that women and children were bing used as human shields at a besieged mosque in Pakistan's capital on Thursday, as hundreds of militant students ignored a plea from their captured leader to surrender.

Here are some other instances of sieges to evict militants from Muslim holy places:

* SAUDI ARABIA - Islamist rebels led by Juhayman al-Oteibi took over the Grand Mosque in Mecca on November 20, 1979, and demanded the overthrow of Saudi Arabia's monarch. The rebellion, was put down following heavy fighting in which 117 Juhayman supporters and a similar number of troops died. Juhayman was captured and publicly beheaded within a month, along with 62 captured fighters.

INDIA - Indian troops laid siege at the Hazratbal shrine in disputed Kashmir in October/November 1993 when armed Muslim guerrillas took refuge inside. The standoff ended peacefully after 32 days.

-- In May 1995 the shrine to Kashmir's patron saint Sheikh Nooruddin Wali, the Khankah mosque and some 1,200 houses were razed in a standoff between the Indian army and separatist guerrillas. The Indian army said the militants set the shrine on fire, but the guerrillas and residents blamed the army.

IRAQ - The Mehdi Army militia of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr took refuge in Iraq's holiest Shi'ite shrine, the Imam Ali Mosque in Najaf, during fighting with U.S. forces in August 2004. A three-week siege was ended after a compromise under which the Shi'ite militiamen agreed to leave the shrine and U.S. forces pulled out of the city.

THAILAND - Thai security forces stormed the historic Krue Se mosque in the south of the country in April 2004 to oust a group of Muslims who had taken refuge there after attacking a police post and making off with several guns. Thirty-two people were killed as troops and police used rocket-propelled grenades, assault rifles and grenades to end the siege.

PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES - Israeli troops shot dead two women acting as human shields between soldiers and gunmen holed up in a mosque in the town of Beit Hanoun in Gaza in November 2006. The mosque collapsed shortly after the 12-hour siege to evict the gunmen holed up inside.