[GOTFIVEONIT]

Pakistan begins to raze madrasa

UPDATED ON:
WEDNESDAY, JULY 25, 2007
13:08 MECCA TIME, 10:08 GMT

The government said 102 people were killed in eight days of fighting at the complex [AFP]

Pakistani authorities are demolishing the battle-scarred madrasa or religious school in Islamabad's Red Mosque complex, where scores of people were killed in an army assault this month.

Officials said on Wednesday they decided to raze the four-storeyed structure as it has been badly weakened in the fighting.

"We are demolishing the madrasa because technically it is very dangerous to sustain it," Kamran Lashari, head of the city municipality, said.

"The demolition is going on and it will be completed in three to four days," he said.

However, he said the government had no plans to demolish the mosque, and it was being renovated to be reopened for prayers on Friday.

Pakistani army commandoes stormed the complex and adjoining Jamia Hafsa seminary for women on July 10 after those running a Taliban-style movement from the complex refused to surrender.

The government said 102 people were killed in eight days of fighting when security forces stormed the complex.

After the assault, President Pervez Musharraf, an important ally of the United States in its "war on terror", vowed not to allow mosques or madrasas to be misused.

[Abu_Hind]

inna lilahi wa inna ilayhi raji'oon

[Kaminyu]

This seems rather counter-productive for PR purposes.

[GOTFIVEONIT]

Pitched battles near Lal Masjid

By Syed Irfan Raza

ISLAMABAD, July 27: The Lal Masjid and its surrounding areas witnessed pitched battles between security forces and supporters of Maulana Abdul Aziz, former chief cleric of the mosque, after worshipers refused to offer Friday prayers behind a government-appointed imam.

The protesters, many of them students of Jamia Fareedia, repainted the walls of the mosque red, which had been turned beige on the orders of the authorities.

Just before prayers hundreds of supporters of Maulana Aziz sprang into action, slipped into the mosque and reoccupied it for hours, exposing the capability of all intelligence agencies and security departments as they failed to foresee the reaction from the worshipers who were angry over the reported killing of their friends and colleagues in a recent military operation.

The battle between worshipers and security forces has raised questions over whether prayers could be offered in the mosque in future.

The efforts of the government and the local administration to normalise the situation in Sector G-6 by completely lifting curfew and appointing Maulana Muhammad Ashfaq as the official imam of the mosque proved futile as the area people and other supporters of the defunct administration of Lal Masjid asked the local authorities to bring back Maulana Abdul Aziz to the mosque for leading the Friday prayers.

“We were expecting a slight reaction of the people but what happened was beyond our expectations,” a senior official of the local administration said.