Pakistani forces securing last parts of rebel mosque

ISLAMABAD, July 11 (Reuters) Pakistani security forces were securing the last parts of a mosque and school complex today, a day after an assault that killed a rebel cleric, more than 50 Islamist fighters and eight soldiers.

Many questions were unanswered including the final death toll and whether any women or children had been killed at the radical Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, in Islamabad.

''The remaining parts of the complex are being cleared, the headquarters and residential complex of Ghazi and the other militants,'' said military spokesman Major-General Waheed Arshad.

He said he had no report of women or children among the dead.

Hardline cleric Abdul Rashid Ghazi died in a hail of bullets in a last stand yesterday night. It had yet to be decided where and when he would be buried, officials said.

Three militants were killed in an exchange of fire overnight but there were no further reports of clashes, Arshad said. An occasional explosion rang out from the fortified mosque-school complex as troops destroyed booby-traps and mines.

Heavy security was still in place around the compound with reporters kept back and a curfew in the neighbourhood.

Eight members of the security forces were killed and 29 wounded in ''Operation Silence'', the codename for the final assault that raged from before dawn to after dusk.

Heavy casualties, especially among women and children who were religious students based at the compound would be bad for President Pervez Musharraf, going through arguably the worst patch of a roller-coaster eight years in power.

Elections are due later this year and the general, who came to power in a 1999 coup, is seeking a second five-year term. He is expected to address the nation on Wedneday or Thursday.

TOLL TO RISE An estimate of more than 50 militants dead would rise, Arshad said. Regarding possible deaths of women or children, he said: ''Not to my knowledge. No women and children have been killed.'' ''That was one of the major plans of our strategy, a step-by-step approach to ensure no women and children were killed.'' No one knew how many people were in the complex when the assault began. More than 1,200 people left during a week-long standoff after clashes erupted on July 3.

Estimates from officials on the number remaining had ranged from hundreds to 2,000. Arshad said the military, before the assault, had estimated 200 to 300 people there.

''We're going to comb the area and then we'll see what we find.'' Arshad said 86 people came out of the complex after the assault began, including women, children and militants.

Young women were among the most fervent supporters of the Taliban-style movement led by Lal Masjid's two cleric brothers, Ghazi and Abdul Aziz. The latter was caught escaping a week ago, disguised in a woman's black burqa.

The clerics had sought to impose strict Islamic law in the capital and incited followers, most drawn from restive North West Frontier Province, to run a vigilante anti-vice campaign.

Gangs of burqa-clad, stave-wielding young women had become a symbol of the movement's challenge to the state.

Many Pakistanis berated Musharraf for not clamping down sooner on the students who abducted policemen and kidnapped women they accused of being prostitutes.

But self-exiled former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, who in the run-up to elections has been linked to a possible power-sharing deal with Musharraf, backed the government action.

Newspapers were also supportive, saying the government should have acted sooner but in the end had no choice but force.

Reuters GT GC1409