Pakistani troops involved in the operation to flush out militants holed up in the Lal Masjid in Islamabad have located radical cleric Abdul Rashid Ghazi and have given him an ultimatum to surrender.
Lal Masjid deputy administrator Abdul Rashid Ghazi has been killed during the army operation at the mosque in Islamabad, Pakistan's Geo TV quoted Interior Ministry officials as saying on Tuesday.
The bloody stand-off between security forces and the militants, headed by Gazi, entered the fourth day on Friday as government spurned all kinds of demands by Ghazi.
Khalil, who figured in India's list of most wanted terrorists, was a close aide of Ghazi and used by the government negotiators to hold talks with Ghazi on Monday night.
On Thursday, the government rejected Ghazi's offer to leave the mosque with his followers if he was granted a safe passage of the kind provided by India to Pakistani militants during Kargil war.
The troops who finally took control of the mosque discovered letters from al-Zawahari, The Sunday Times said, quoting senior intelligence officials.
Aabpara police station in Islamabad has registered 17 of these cases and Kohsar and Bhara Kahu police stations one each.
The ripples of Lal Masjid crackdown were felt mostly in tribal areas of NWFP like Malakand Agency and Bajour.
The militants have also decided to establish a seminary similar to Jamia Hafsa, the girls madrassa attached to Lal Masjid which was razed to the ground by the government after its capture early this month.
The perception that the extremists have got a clear signal from the establishment regarding its threshold to tolerate such nonsense will keep others in check.
Meanwhile, authorities imposed prohibition on the surrounding areas of Lal Masjid and Jamia Hafsa late last night, restricting the movement of common people.
'Escalation of violence in the tribal areas and Musharraf's increased physical vulnerability to another terrorist attack would be the inevitable outcome of the operation.'
Abdul Rashid Ghazi blamed the US and called the government an agent of the US.
A Pakistani court on Friday remanded beleaguered former President Pervez Musharraf to judicial custody for 14 days while another court rejected a request to bar him from travelling out of the country.
A non-bailable arrest warrant was issued on Friday against former Pakistani dictator Pervez Musharraf by a court in Islamabad for repeatedly failing to appear in the 2007 murder case of Lal Masjid cleric Abdul Rashid Ghazi.
Former Pakistani military ruler Pervez Musharraf was on Wednesday freed after spending nearly six months in house arrest as he has been granted bail in four major cases registered against him, including one over the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.
A Pakistani court on Friday issued non-bailable arrest warrant against former military dictator Pervez Musharraf and ordered police to present him in the court in the murder case of Lal Masjid cleric Abdul Rashid Ghazi, who was killed in a military operation in 2007.
A non-bailable warrant was issued against former Pakistani military ruler Pervez Musharraf in connection with the murder case of Lal Masjid cleric Abdul Rashid Ghazi.
The arrest warrant was challenged in the high court which set aside the orders of the lower court
A Pakistani court has extended the custody of former president General Pervez Musharraf till October 30 in the Lal Masjid case and ruled that the next hearing would be held at his Chak Shahzad farmhouse, which has been turned into a sub-jail.
Learning perhaps from the Kargil debacle, Musharraf tried hard to evolve as a statesman in his dealings with India, recalls Rana Banerji, who headed the Pakistan desk at RA&W.
A Pakistani court on Thursday ordered authorities to remove the name of former military ruler Pervez Musharraf from the exit control list, paving the way for him to leave the country.
Even as France mourns the bloodiest terrorist attack for 20 years, let's take a look at some major standoffs witnessed in the past:
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