The battle marked a major escalation in a standoff at the Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, whose clerics have challenged the military-led government by mounting a vigilante anti-vice campaign in Islamabad.

Trouble began when student followers of the mosque, including young men with guns and dozens of women wearing black burqas, rushed toward a nearby police checkpoint early Tuesday afternoon.

Originally posted by RedGolem


From reading the article this sounds like one big mess. Shots were fired in both directions. A building was set on fire. The part about the public address speaker system telling people to get into position to follow through on suicide bombings is what really turned my stomach. Here is a mosque of the religion of peace with advanced weapons and training there people to be suicide bombers, does any one else see a problem with this?

www.chron.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

TNSM
The TNSM is a militant Wahabi outfit whose primary objective is the imposition of Sharia in Pakistan.

The outfit has a large number of ex-servicemen, including many retired Commissioned Officers, within its ranks. It has substantial support in Malakand and Bajaur and includes activists that have fought in Afghanistan at some time during the past 25 years.

the TNSM is reported to have sent thousands of armed cadres to Afghanistan to fight alongside the Taliban militia. News reports of October 27, 2001, from Bajaur indicated that approximately 10,000 TNSM cadres crossed the Pakistan-Afghan border.

All roads lead to the red mosque

All these pro-Taliban/al-Qaeda zones on the Afghan border have connections with the Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) in Islamabad, run by outspoken brothers Maulana Abdul Aziz and Ghazi Abdul Rasheed.

The Pakistani establishment believes Aziz is in fact the new leader of all the Taliban and al-Qaeda assets spreading through northwestern Pakistan,

Lal Masjid has had numerous high-profile run-ins and standoffs with the government, but Islamabad has never risked an outright confrontation, given the power and influence of the brothers and their standing in the jihadist world.

Britain bans two more Islamist groups

Tehreek Nifaz-e-Shariat Mohammadi is active in tribal areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan. The group "regularly attacks coalition and Afghan government forces in Afghanistan and provides direct support to al-Qaida and the Taliban", according to the draft order.

TNSM'S JIHADI SHADOW OVER LONDON

There has since then been a significant resurgence in the activities of the TNSM in the Malakand Division of the NWFP and in the Bajaur Agency of the FATA. It has been organising pro-Taliban activities

Many believe that if Osama bin Laden is alive, he would most probably be in the Chitral area of the Malakand region. Of all the Pashtuns of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region, bin Laden reportedly trusts those of Malakand the most.

the Tehreek Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM) have pledged before their supporters to target VIPs in Pakistan and US and NATO forces in Afghanistan. The bombed Bajaur madrasa was run by the TNSM and is thought to have been used as a training camp for militants. British and US diplomats and nationals are also possible targets of the militants.

~a significant fact that has emerged out of the so-called fertiliser bomb case in the UK has not received the attention it deserved. That is the training of the terrorists involved in this plot in a training camp in Malakand. The fact that these persons went to or were directed to Malakand for training strongly indicates a role for the TNSM in jihadi terrorism in the UK.

Musharraf dithers on action against militant clerics
ISLAMABAD, June 30 (Pajhwok Afghan News): President Gen Pervez Musharraf has admitted suicide bombers, linked to al-Qaeda and the outlawed Jaish-i-Muhammad group, are holed up in a mosque and a seminary bang in the heart of this capital city.

However, the general tended to dawdle with regard to an operation against the militants challenging his government's writ. A raid on the mosque or the religious school adjacent to it would cause heavy casualties on both sides, he said on Friday.

Foreign terrorists hiding in Pakistan's tribal badlands were preparing attacks on targets in the West, said the president

Mosque leader caught in escape attempt

“We caught Abdul Aziz when he was trying to escape the mosque clad in a burqa,” ~. "He was wearing a burqa that also covered his eyes,” ~.

"The rest of the girls looked like girls but he was taller and had a pot belly.”

"He did not offer any resistance.

Originally posted by makeitso
By now you are probably already aware that people have now surrendered by the hundreds.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - A radical cleric arrested while fleeing his government-besieged mosque in a woman's burqa and high heels said Thursday that the nearly 1,000 followers still inside should flee or surrender.

The comments by Maulana Abdul Aziz raised hopes that the standoff could end without further bloodshed, but his brother remained inside the mosque with followers and said there was no reason to surrender.