Thousands protest over Pakistani mosque assault

ISLAMABAD, July 13 (Reuters) Several thousand Pakistani Islamists rallied today to denounce the government for ordering an army crackdown on a radical mosque in the capital, Islamabad.

Protests were held in several towns and cities across the country after Friday prayers but none was very big and there were no reports of trouble.

At least 75 supporters of hardline clerics were killed in Tuesday's commando assault on Islamabad's Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, which ended a week-long standoff between militants and security forces. Ten soldiers were also killed.

''This chapter has not ended here. The bloodshed at Lal Masjid will lead to an Islamist revolution in Pakistan,'' Liaqat Baluch, central leader of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) alliance of religious parties, told a rally of about 300 people in Lahore.

Protesters burned effigies of President Pervez Musharraf and US President George W Bush and shouted ''Long live the martyrs of Lal Masjid'' and ''Musharraf Killer''.

Musharraf, in an address to the nation yesterday, spoke of his resolve to ''eliminate terrorism and extremism from every nook and corner''.

Lal Masjid cleric Abdul Rashid Ghazi, who led his religious students on a drive to impose strict Islamic rule on the capital, was also killed on Tuesday along with hardcore militants who had accumulated an arsenal of weapons and explosives in the complex.

In Islamabad, an MMA deputy leader called on young people to protest, but he urged them not to carry guns, saying that would simply play into the hands of the government and its ally, the United States.

''The Lal Masjid incident is the darkest chapter of Pakistan's history,'' deputy MMA leader Ghafoor Haideri told a congregation of about 200 people in another mosque in the capital.

Banners were strung up on the wall of the mosque where Haideri spoke, reading: ''Musharraf killer'' and ''Musharraf is responsible for killing innocent children at Lal Masjid''.

Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Sherpao said 60-65 of the dead were militants and four or five of them were foreigners, but he didn't say from where.

''CONSPIRACY'' Haideri said the casualty toll was higher and he accused authorities of covering it up.

The Lal Masjid radicals had turned their compound into a virtual fortress during a series of confrontations with the authorities over the last six months. It took the commandos more than 24 hours to eliminate the final pocket of resistance.

The violence has focused attention on religious schools, or madrasas, some of which promote militancy. Musharraf vowed yesterday that madrasas would not be allowed to spread militancy.

In the city of Multan, a cleric and member of an alliance of madrasas said the crackdown boded ill for all madrasas.

''It was part of a conspiracy against madrasas,'' Qari Hanif Jallandari told a rally of several hundred. ''They will launch crackdowns against any seminary on the pretext of terrorism.'' The storming of the mosque has intensified anti-government feelings in the northwest, particularly in tribal regions on the Afghan border.

Nearly 30 people were killed in bomb attacks targeting security forces in the northwest in just over a week, three Chinese were shot on Sunday, and protesters ransacked offices and supplies of Western aid agencies.

Four of the bomb blasts have been suicide attacks, including two on Thursday, that killed seven people, three of them police.

REUTERS AKJ VV2250