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Pakistani Forces Kill Last Holdouts in Red Mosque
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Zawahiri, who is believed to be hiding on the Pakistani side of the border with Afghanistan, released a four-minute video Wednesday in which he condemned "the criminal aggression carried out by Musharraf, his army and his security organs -- the Crusaders' hunting dogs -- against Lal Masjid in Islamabad," according to the IntelCenter, a group that monitors terrorist tapes.
The tape, which was considered an unusually quick response by Zawahiri, called on the Pakistani people to carry out jihad against Musharraf.
Even as the commandos continued to battle, the government fought a war over perceptions. It kept journalists away from the mosque and from hospitals to prevent them from capturing images of the carnage. It also took pains to present Ghazi as the one who had broken off last-minute negotiations, which apparently stalled over the fate of foreign fighters. Officials said that Uzbek, Chechen, Tajik and Afghan fighters had been among those killed, and that some were believed to be wanted terrorists.
Prime Minister Aziz, speaking at an afternoon news conference, said more than 1,300 people had fled the mosque before the raid began. Once it started, he said, there were apparently few women and children left. Three children and 27 women came out alive during the operation, far fewer than had been estimated to be remaining inside as potential hostages.
Aziz said he did not know of any women or children who had been killed in the operation, and credited commandos with ensuring civilian safety by moving methodically through the compound.
But Aziz conceded that the government had underestimated how difficult it would be to oust the radicals. Government officials had said a raid would take an hour or less; in fact, it took a day and a half, with bursts of gunfire still echoing from the mosque as late as Wednesday afternoon. Fighters inside used machine guns, rocket launchers and booby traps as they fought through a warren of bunkers and tunnels.
"The resistance that the law enforcement agencies faced was much more than what anyone expected," Aziz said. "These people were trained, hard-core fighters who knew very clearly what they were doing."
Special correspondents Shahzad Khurram in Islamabad and Imtiaz Ali in Peshawar contributed to this report.
