Pakistan: Red Mosqueteers are at it again.

Mosque Students, security forces exchange fire. At least two people were injured and dozens of girls enrolled in a madrassa religious school fainted as security forces and militant students exchanged fire at a besieged mosque in Pakistan's capital Islamabad on Tuesday. Clerics of the Red Mosques also asked the students to take up their positions and prepare to carry out suicide attacks, local reports said.
Soldier killed, five wounded. Jihadettes faint. Muslims seethe. Dog bites man.

Get the Rangers in a circle, Pilgrim. Pakistan had on Monday deployed more forces near the mosque to tighten security around it, Dawn newspaper reported on Tuesday. The move has brought the total number of Rangers deployed around the mosque to 1,500, with 500 police commandos in support. The newspaper quoting informed sources said the authorities of the mosque have also reinforced security of its brigade, which is equipped with advanced weapons and wireless systems, and threatened to raid more massage centres in the city.

Dare I say it? Sure I will. Musharraf is a pussy. President Pervez Musharraf said on Friday that the potential loss of human lives was preventing him from taking any action against the Lal Masjid, while adding that suicide bombers from Jaish-e-Mohammad were also hiding in the mosque.

“We are afraid of the baton-wielding madrassas who will stand by Lal Masjid if we launch action,” he said, while addressing the concluding ceremony of the National Media Workshop organised by the National Defence University. He said the female students of the Lal Masjid’s adjoining madrassa were “prepared for suicide attacks” and up to 500 children “were being used as human shields” to stop the government from contemplating any operation.

He said members of Jaish-e-Mohammad, the banned militant group linked to Al Qaeda, were also hiding in the mosque, adding that they were all capable of suicide attacks. “How can I take action?” he said. “Action is ready but will be taken at a right time.”

He goes on to add: that the government would take action against the Lal Masjid if the media guaranteed that it would not show any of the bodies of those killed during the operation.

Jihadis from all over the region are reported to be riding to the rescue. Contacts in jihadist circles told Asia Times Online that there will be a reaction all over the country, including in Karachi, Lahore and Peshawar. They claimed that more than 1,000 jihadis were already on their way to the capital.

And all 'peace agreements' are off. The jihadi contacts also said any peace agreements with the government in Bajur agency and the Waziristan tribal areas would be terminated. After a series of disastrous military offensives to try to contain militancy and Taliban activities in the tribal areas, the government made several deals under which it withdrew its troops and made peace deals.

Not only are the Red Mosqueteers against vice and modern life, at issue is a fatwa (again with the fatwas!) that provoked the reaction against the Pakistani military. The decree mandated that people were not allowed to say funeral prayers or bury soldiers in Muslim graveyards if they were killed fighting against the Taliban.