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Pakistani troops secure rebel mosque

Pakistani commandos cleared the warren-like Red Mosque complex of all die-hard defenders yesterday, ending a fierce eight-day siege and street battles which left more than 80 dead.

"The first phase of the operation is over. There are no more militants left inside," army spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad said in a telephone interview.

He said that the compound was still being combed for mines, booby traps and other weaponry.

Arshad said three of the remaining die-hard defenders had been killed overnight, while the government side sustained some wounded as late as midmorning.

Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz told reporters that no bodies of women and children had been found inside the sprawling complex and said the probability such bodies would be found during the clearing operation was low.

"The major group of women was all together and came out all together," he said, referring to 27 women and three children who emerged from the mosque on Tuesday.

"The operation is over. Everybody who was inside is out," Aziz said.

More than 50 militants and 10 soldiers were killed and 33 injured since the assault began in the early hours of Tuesday, including the mosque's pro-Taliban cleric Abdul Rashid Ghazi, the army said.

Commandos went in after the mosque's militants refused to surrender following a weeklong siege.

The extremists had been using the mosque as a base to send out radicalized students to enforce their version of Islamic morality, including abducting alleged prostitutes and trying to "re-educate" them at the compound.

More than 80 people have been killed since the violence began.

By early afternoon yesterday, nearly 35 hours after the assault began, the intermittent explosions and gunfire heard earlier from inside the complex, which includes the mosque and a women's religious school, had ceased.

Ghazi's body was found in the basement of the women's religious school after a fierce gunbattle involving militants, Interior Ministry official Brigadier Javed Iqbal Cheema said.

Several security officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Ghazi was wounded by two bullets and gave no response when ordered to surrender.

Commandos then fired another volley and found him dead.

Cheema said the body would be handed to relatives for burial. Ghazi's brother, Abdul Aziz, the mosque's chief who was arrested trying to escape from the mosque last week, would be allowed to attend the funeral.

Editorials in several mainstream newspapers yesterday said the government had no choice but to confront the intransigent militants.

Meanwhile, about 500 people chanting "Death to Musharraf" rallied for an hour in the northwestern town of Peshawar yesterday to protest the attack on the mosque.
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