Pakistani forces killed a rebel Islamist leader and more than 50 of his militants yesterday after 15 hours of fighting in an Islamabad mosque compound at the climax of a week-long siege.
Militants mounted a last stand in the basement of a religious school, where cleric Abdul Rashid Ghazi was killed, the Interior Ministry said. There was no immediate word on the fate of women and children he was said to have been using as human shields.
"He was spotted in the basement and asked to come out. He came out with four or five militants who kept on firing at security forces," spokesman Brigadier Javed Cheema said, updating an earlier account of the incident.
"Ghazi was surrounded by the militants who did not let him surrender and he was killed in the crossfire," Interior Ministry spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema said.
Cheema said some surviving militants were still putting up resistance after Ghazi was killed.
At least eight soldiers died and 29 were wounded in the assault to end the standoff at Lal Masjid, the Red Mosque, military spokesman Major-General Waheed Arshad said earlier. Fifty militants had been captured or surrendered by then.
"Operation Silence" started at 4am with a barrage of explosions and sustained gunfire, and news of Ghazi's death broke at around 7pm. Even afterwards, two loud explosions were heard.
The operation took so long because there were more than 70 rooms in the sprawling mosque-school complex, and the militants were armed with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades.
Fear that many women and children were inside the complex had stopped the military using full force during the assault.
At least 30 children and 24 women had managed to get out. It was unclear how many more women and children remained inside but earlier officials had said hundreds could be there.
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