The Red Mosque became a flash point for renewed violence Friday as authorities attempted to reopen it for Muslim prayers, with militants battling police and an apparent suicide blast nearby killing at least 13 people.
The mosque in the heart of the capital was the scene just over two weeks ago of a raid by commandos who seized the compound from the heavily armed followers of two radical clerics. More than 100 people died, and a wave of reprisal attacks by militants in subsequent days left 180 more dead.
The confrontation with militants, including hard-core Taliban- and Al Qaeda-allied extremists based in the tribal areas straddling the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, has placed heavy new pressure on President Pervez Musharraf.
The Pakistani leader was already struggling with a burgeoning pro-democracy movement and the Supreme Court’s reinstatement this month of the chief justice, whom he had suspended in an apparent effort to fend off legal challenges to his re-election plans.
Pakistani authorities had expressed hopes that renovating the mosque and reopening it for prayers would soothe militants’ anger and help lay the episode to rest.
But protesters, many of them clad in traditional prayer caps, ejected a government-appointed cleric when he tried to preside over Friday prayers, the most important of the Muslim week. A crowd outside the compound hurled stones at riot police, who responded with volleys of tear gas.
As worshipers flooded the compound, protesters scaled rooftops to inscribe the mosque’s Urdu-language name, Lal Masjid, on its dome. In a gesture of defiance, they splashed red paint on the walls of the mosque, which was named for its original red-brick exterior. Others raised the mosque’s onetime standard, a black flag inscribed with the Muslim declaration of faith.
The explosion, which took place several hours into the confrontation, occurred on the edge of busy Aabpara Market, a few hundred yards from the mosque compound. The blast went off close to police barricades blocking the way to the mosque, and most of those killed and injured were police.
It shattered shop windows, left blood pooled in the street and sent passersby fleeing in panic.
A senior Interior Ministry official, Kamal Shah, told reporters the blast was believed to have been a suicide attack, with security forces as its principal target. In addition to the dead, dozens were injured.
By evening, protesters had been dispersed and police were again in control of the compound, which sits in the middle of an upscale residential neighborhood. Police said about 50 protesters were arrested.
The U.S. Embassy warned American citizens to avoid the vicinity of the mosque, which is only a short distance from Islamabad’s diplomatic enclave, the presidential building and the parliament.
The mosque protesters demanded the reinstatement of former chief cleric Maulana Abdul Aziz, who tried during the early days of the weeklong siege to flee the mosque compound disguised as a woman. He is now in the custody of Pakistani authorities.
Aziz’s brother and deputy, Abdul Rashid Ghazi, was killed in the raid, and cries from the mosque loudspeakers Friday hailed him and his slain followers as martyrs.
“Ghazi, the shedding of your blood will inspire a revolution!” protesters shouted.
