No breakthough in talks over Pakistan siege mosque

ISLAMABAD, July 9 (Reuters) Attempts to negotiate an end to a bloody standoff at a Pakistani mosque failed to make progress today, a day after authorities gave Islamist militants inside a ''final warning'' to surrender.

Security forces fired teargas and traded intermittent fire with gunmen inside the compound housing the Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, and a girl's religious school in the heart of Islamabad.

Religious scholars and former prime minister Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain gathered outside to plead with the militants to send out dead and wounded, along with women and children whom the government says are being held hostage.

''I can't say that there's been any breakthrough,'' Information Minister Mohammad Ali Durrani said later.

''So far, there's no flexibility.'' Troops have surrounded the compound since Tuesday last week when clashes between armed student radicals and government forces erupted after months of tension. At least 21 people have died.

The government has demanded that rebel cleric Abdul Rashid Ghazi and his hardcore of fighters surrender or die.

Ghazi has refused, saying he would prefer martyrdom. He said he and the followers of his Taliban-style movement hoped their deaths would spark an Islamic revolution.

Security forces say they have held back from mounting a full-scale assault because of fears for the women and children inside. Troops have instead blasted holes in the walls to provide escape routes for them to get out.

Durrani said it was too dangerous for the clerics to go into the compound. Instead the talks, which would continue, were by telephone and over loudspeakers. Six parents who went in to bring out their children had been taken hostage, he said.

The government says the Lal Masjid's defenders include wanted militants. Many of the 200 to 500 students inside have been forced or persuaded to stay, it says.

Ghazi says he has nearly 2,000 followers with him but no militants and that no one is being held hostage.

JIHAD WARNING A woman, who feared her daughter had been killed and buried in the compound, begged to go inside as she waited with about a dozen other parents behind barbed wire barriers.

''I request the law enforcement agencies to let me go inside.

I can go alone, and I know nobody will fire from inside. I know these people very well,'' Asia Bibi said.

The Lal Masjid has been a centre of militancy for years, known for its support for Afghanistan's Taliban and opposition to Musharraf's backing for the United States.

About 1,200 students left the mosque soon after the clashes began but the number leaving has since slowed to a trickle.

Officials say the militants have distributed suicide-bomb vests and even shot students trying to flee.

Feeding fears of a militant backlash, three Chinese workers were shot dead in the northwestern city of Peshawar on Sunday, in what authorities said appeared to be a response to the siege.

At least 20 people, most soldiers and police, have been killed in four blasts and an ambush since Wednesday although it was not clear if the attacks were linked to the siege.

But a wanted Pakistani militant linked to al Qaeda vowed revenge if the mosque was assaulted. ''We will declare jihad,'' Faqir Mohammad, flanked by masked gunmen, told a crowd of nearly 10,000 tribesmen in the Bajaur region on thAfghan border.

''Death to America'' and ''Down with Musharraf'', they shouted.

Reuters SZ SBA VP0200