[gandalftb]

Report that a list of "heavyweight" militants with photos is circulating through the assault/search troops. No mention that they are foreign.

Briefing starting

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Just trying to capture what is coming from the Media - before the serious spinning starts....:Voice of America...

Pakistani Government: Cleric at Radical Mosque Killed

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By VOA News
10 July 2007

Pakistani Islamic cleric and deputy administrator of the Islamic madrassa school Jamia Hasfa Abdul Rashid Ghazi seen in this file photo taken on 10 Feb. 2007 in Islamabad, Pakistan

Pakistan's interior ministry says the cleric leading resistance at a radical mosque stormed by Pakistani troops has been killed.

Details surrounding Abdul Rashid Ghazi's death have not been confirmed.  The Muslim cleric is thought to have been barricaded in the Red Mosque's basement, where the military said he was using women and children as human shields.

Pakistani security forces stormed the Red Mosque's compound in an operation that officials say has left at least 50 Islamic militants and eight soldiers dead.

A military spokesman, Major General Waheed Arshad, said troops now control most of the complex. 

Authorities said the military has rescued at least 70 people.

Ghazi's followers want to install strict Taleban-style Islamic law in the country. Negotiations for their surrender had broken down before the military launched its assault.

Ghazi had said everyone with him in the mosque would rather die fighting than surrender to government forces.  He had said he hoped his death would provoke an Islamic revolution in Pakistan. 

The government says some militants in the mosque are linked to the al-Qaida terrorist network.

Some information for this report was provided by AFP, AP and Reuters.

[sarasota]

Please relay the content of the briefing and thanks in advance.

[gandalftb]

Briefing: there will be many more than 50 militants killed, "sanitizing" still underway, slowly, still recovering women and children alive, militants very heavily armed and fighting on in small groups, very angry questions from reporters, shouting, yes, there are foreign militants inside but too early to discuss them....question: won't casualty figures be in the hundreds? answer: I refuse to answer.....

question: wasn't there pressure from outside the country to make this attack? answer: our sympathies are for our country only and we did this to fight terrorism here...please don't rush to the hospitals to do interviews

question: high value targets? ans: too early to say, still sanitizing. Many questions about foreigners, no comment given except that operations are ongoing