At least 14 people, including seven policemen, were killed Friday in a suicide attack as hundreds of hard-line supporters of a detained radical cleric briefly took over the pro- Taliban Red Mosque in Islamabad, according to dpa. "Around 42 people were injured in the suicide attack," Interior Secretary Syed Kamal Shah told Deutsche Presse Agentur dpa. A number of the 42 injured were said to be in critical condition. The suicide bomber targeted a group of policemen deployed few hundred metres from the Red Mosque compound, which was occupied by around 2500 demonstrators as it was reopened to the public for mid- day Friday prayer after security operation earlier this month. "The policemen were sitting outside a small hotel when a young man in his 20s approached them and blew himself up," said witness Amir Khan, who said he was just on the other side of the road. "There were several body parts, arms, legs, fingers, ears, scattered in a diameter of around 1000 metres at the site, which was later on sealed off by the authorities" a dpa correspondent said from the scene The suicide bombing appears linked to the Red Mosque operation that has sparked a series of suicide attacks on security forces, including one in Islamabad last week where 18 people were killed. Earlier, enraged people at the Red Mosque called to avenge the killing of their preacher Abdul Rashid Ghazi, and other "innocent sisters, brothers and sons" in the security operation. "Holy War, holy war against a puppet of America," they chanted in a reference to President Pervez Musharraf's support for US in its war on terrorism. Islamists also refused to offer the prayers led by a government- appointed cleric who replaced Lal Masjid's chief administrator, Maulana Abdul Aziz. The new cleric, Mohammad Ashfaq, was led out of the mosque safely. Some protesters flew Islamic flags on the rooftop of the mosque that donned a new look with freshly plastered exterior, painted in a paler shade of white to replace red from which the mosque drew its name. But the colour changed to red again as dozens of people repainted the parts of the mosque in its original colour. Police used teargas to disperse the crowd, which pelted stones at the law enforcers, injuring two of them. Three demonstrators were also wounded in the clashes that continued for several hours. Around 100 rioters were arrested as the police regained the control of the mosque compound, where people recovered several bones of those killed during the operation. "There were around 2,000 girl students in the Jamia Hafsa (religious school) when we left the complex just before the operation," teenager Qurat-ul-Ain who surrendered during the mosque siege and was released later on, told reporters at the scene. "The government has razed this seminary but we will build 1,000 more in its place," her colleagues said. The government has been saying that some 75 militants were killed in the raid, which was carried out by the law enforcers after five months stand off with the radical students on their campaign to enforce Taliban-style, narrow Islamic way of life on the public in Islamabad. Leaders of the political religious alliance Muttahida Majlis-i- Amal, who had arrived at the mosque in a vain attempt to calm the situation, said the only solution to this crisis was the removal of Musharraf from power. "We demand a judicial probe into the whole episode as only such an inquiry could establish the facts," parliamentarian Liaquat Baloch said. Another religious party leader, Siraj-ul-Haq, said that Ghazi's death in the military operation would trigger Islamic revolution in the country. Meanwhile, nationalist rebels shot dead the top government spokesman in Pakistan's south-west Balochistan province on Friday, police said. Raziq Bugti, who represented the Balochistan government, was ambushed in the provincial capital Quetta when he was travelling in his car without any police guard, a duty officer told dpa. A banned organization, Balochistan Liberation Army, has accepted the responsibility for the attack. "The man was involved in the murder of Nwab Akbar Buggti," a spokesman who named himself as Bairg Baloch told journalists on telephone. The organization demands larger share for Balochistan province in the income gained by its natural resources and provincial autonomy.
