Musharraf Gets Tough on Muslim Terrorists
THE TELEGRAPH: President Pervez Musharraf pledged to combat Muslim extremists across Pakistan yesterday as furious crowds demonstrated against the storming of the Red Mosque and two suicide bomb attacks left six dead.

In a televised address to the nation, Gen Musharraf said that those inside the mosque and its adjacent madrassa, or Muslim college, were "terrorists" who directly threatened Pakistan's security. They had also tarnished Islam's reputation as a tolerant and peaceful religion.

"What do we as a nation want?" he asked. "What kind of Islam do these people represent? In the garb of Islamic teaching they have been training for terrorism. They prepared the madrassa as a fortress for war and housed other terrorists in there."

Gen Musharraf praised the army for wresting the mosque and its madrassa "from the hands of terrorists" and said: "I will not allow any madrassa to be used for extremism." Musharraf declares war on Muslim extremists (more) By David Blair

Mark Alexander

Pakistani Troops Storm Red Mosque
GLOBE AND MAIL: ISLAMABAD — Pakistani troops seized Islamabad's Red Mosque on Tuesday and attempted to flush out the remaining militants entrenched inside a women's religious school in fierce fighting that left at least 50 militants and eight soldiers dead, the army said.

The troops stormed the mosque compound before dawn. Eight hours later, they were still trying to root out the well-armed defenders said to be holding about 150 hostages. Officials said at least 50 women were allowed to go free from the complex. Some 26 children had earlier escaped.

Clashes this month between security forces and supporters of the mosque's hard-line clerics prompted the siege. The religious extremists had been trying to impose Taliban-style morality in the capital through a six-month campaign of kidnappings and threats. At least 67 people have been killed since July 3.

Amid the sounds of rolling explosions, commandos attacked from three directions about 4 a.m. and quickly cleared the ground floor of the mosque, army spokesman General Waheed Arshad said. Some 20 children who rushed toward the advancing troops were brought to safety, he said. Dozens dead as Pakistani troops storm mosque (more) By Zarar Khan

Mark Alexander

Indoctrinated Pakistani Children in the Red Mosque Choose Martyrdom Over Freedom
THE SUNDAY TIMES: SAIMA KHAN wants to die a martyr. Life is transient, she told her father in a telephone call last week, and the real glory is to sacrifice it for Allah. Her statement would be alarming at any age, but Saima is only 10.

As she spoke, rifle shots rang out, the acrid smell of tear gas drifted over Islamabad and hundreds of troops surrounded the pro-Taliban Red Mosque, a religious school complex in the heart of Pakistan’s capital where Saima was among hundreds of children being held as virtual hostages in a stand-off between militants and the government.

Saima and her 14-year-old sister, Asma, were embroiled in a struggle for the soul of Pakistan in which up to 70 militants died last week and more than 100 were injured, according to mosque officials.

Holed up inside the complex behind the lines of troops and razor wire, the children – many of them girls whose families had sent them to the mosque to receive a strict Islamic education – repeatedly rejected relatives’ entreaties to leave before a threatened army onslaught.

There was evidence that many had been brainwashed into a cult of martyrdom, and the authorities feared last night that some were being prepared to be suicide bombers. In barely eight weeks, Saima had been transformed from a religious but fun-loving girl to a jihadi, grimly craving martyrdom.

At the barricades, her father, Luftullah Khan, a shopkeeper, frantically pestered soldiers to let him rescue both his daughters. But when he got through to them on their mobile telephone, they said they preferred martyrdom to freedom. Brainwashed children plead to die as martyrs in Red Mosque siege (more) By Dean Nelson in Islamabad

Mark Alexander