Pakistani Military Mops up At Red Mosque

Dawn reports that the Pakistani military was still fighting at the Red Mosque complex in Islamabad on Wednesday morning. The clerical leader of the militant resistance there, Abdul Rashid Ghazi, was killed along with at least 50 others when they took up arms against approaching troops. The feared massacre of women and children hostages appears not to have taken place.

Islamabad remained under curfew and the federal government determined to monitor the possible radical backlash, especially in the Northwest Frontier Province, where Deobandi seminarians felt a strong kinship with the militants at the Red Mosque.