By STEPHEN GRAHAM
The Associated Press
Wednesday, July 11, 2007; 5:34 PM
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- President Pervez Musharraf's decision to have the army storm the Red Mosque may strengthen the U.S.-allied leader's hand among Pakistanis dismayed at how Islamic militants used the holy site as a fortress.
It also has pushed a fight over his bungled attempt to fire the country's top judge out of a harsh media spotlight and prompted a fresh show of support from Washington.
However, the general has given extremist enemies who have repeatedly tried to assassinate him a new cause to rally around, raising the prospect of surging violence as Pakistan heads toward elections and he seeks another five years in power.
Al-Qaida's deputy leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, became the latest to demand revenge against Musharraf over the battle, issuing a video Wednesday urging Pakistanis to wage holy war against their government.
"The big question mark now is what is going to be the reaction of the Islamists," said Shaun Gregory, head of Bradford University's Pakistan Security Research Unit in Britain.
While the assault avoided the bloodbath the government had feared, several radical clerics and militant leaders are calling for attacks on Musharraf's government and security forces, insisting the troops slaughtered innocent students and defiled the Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque.
A string of attacks since the mosque siege began July 3 has hit at government targets in Pakistan's northwest, where many people are sympathetic to the hard-line Islam of the Taliban. At least 30 people died, including 17 soldiers and policemen.
Mansoor Dadullah, a senior commander of Taliban fighters in neighboring Afghanistan, on Wednesday called for suicide attacks on Pakistani security forces.
Still, the siege could blunt an opposition drive against Musharraf's plan to ask lawmakers for a new five-year term this fall without first giving up his post as army chief.
Images of troops surrounding the white-domed Red Mosque to a soundtrack of explosions and gunfire overshadowed a weekend meeting of 60 opposition parties in London designed to coordinate their campaign against Musharraf, who seized power in a 1999 coup.
It also diverted attention from Musharraf's attempt to fire the Supreme Court chief justice, a misstep that set off a broader democracy movement and alienated some of the leader's own supporters.
Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister and opposition leader expected by many to return from exile and join Musharraf in a power-sharing deal after year-end general elections, praised him for taking a tough line on the Red Mosque.
"I'm glad there was no cease-fire with the militants in the mosque because cease-fires simply embolden the militants," she told Britain's Sky TV on Tuesday. "There will be a backlash, but at some time we have to stop appeasing the militants."
Pakistan's mainstream, liberal newspapers also backed the assault, though ordinary citizens appeared less enthusiastic.
Several people interviewed by AP sympathized with some of the clerics' professed goals, especially closing down alleged brothels in Pakistan's relatively Westernized capital.
But they also criticized the mosque leaders' increasingly aggressive anti-vice campaign, which included kidnapping alleged Chinese prostitutes, and their stockpiling of weapons and ammunition at the holy site and an adjoining madrassa, or religious school, for girls.
"Musharraf's government did this to please America," Murtaza Khan, a 55-year-old shopkeeper in Peshawar, said of the army assault at the mosque.
But then he added: "This incident also shows that there should be checks on the madrassas. If something like this is going on in any madrassa, action can be taken in time."
Ikram Sehgal, a Pakistani political analyst, said that sentiment could help Musharraf broaden public support for cracking down on violent Islamic radicalism. The siege "has woken up people in Pakistan who were generally favorable to the Taliban and to the clerics," Sehgal said.
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Associated Press writer Stephen Graham has reported from Pakistan and Afghanistan since 2003.