Thousands of Pakistanis vowed support for jihad, on Sunday as they gathered at a mosque in the capital, Islamabad, to mark the first anniversary of an army raid on the complex. More than 100 people were killed when commandos stormed the Red Mosque complex, which included a madrasa, on July 10 last year, after a week-long siege that began when gunmen from the mosque clashed with police outside. Speakers told a crowd of several thousand, most of them men, that US ally President Pervez Musharraf was to blame for the bloodshed. "Pervez Musharraf, you thought you could crush the Islamic movement by attacking the Lal Masjid (Red Mosque), but we are telling you, you have failed," Shah Abdul Aziz, a cleric and former member of the parliament, told the crowd. "It was done at the behest of America and Bush. But I want to tell America jihad will continue, it will never stop," he said. The protesters, most of them religious students, shouted "Al-Jihad" in response. Speakers warned the new government formed after February elections against any crackdown on religious schools and said any such attempts would be forcefully resisted. They also demanded that the government release the mosque's jailed cleric, Abdul Aziz, and rebuild a women's madrasa in the complex, that was leveled after the raid.
