Suicide bombers hole up in Lal Masjid: Musharraf

President Pervez Musharraf said on Friday suicide bombers from an al Qaeda-linked militant group are holed up in Lal Masjid.

Authorities have been locked in a tense stand-off for months with clerics and students associated with Lal Masjid, who are pushing for imposition of Islamic values in Islamabad.

Clerics at the mosque had threatened suicide attacks if government used force against them.

Speaking to reporters, President Musharraf said militants of Jaish-e-Mohammad, an al Qaeda-linked group fighting Indian rule in the occupied Kashmir region, were hiding in the mosque.

"They are indoctrinated people," he told a workshop on journalism.

"There are also people associated to Jaish-e-Mohammad. They have explosives. Many of them are ready to carry out suicide attacks," he added.

President Musharraf, who survived two al Qaeda-inspired assassination attempts, said the government had tried to resolve the stand-off through negotiations to avoid bloodshed in the sprawling mosque complex, which also houses a religious seminary or madrasa.

"Action is ready but timing is important," he said.

"I am not a coward person ... but the issue is tomorrow you will say what have you done. There are women and children inside," he said.

PRO-TALIBAN RADICALS

Lal Masjid has long been known as a headquarters of pro-Taliban radicals in Islamabad but trouble began in January when female students attached to the mosque occupied a library next to their madrasa to protest over a campaign to remove mosques built illegally on state land.

In March, students abducted three women they accused of running a brothel and held them for several days before releasing them.

They have also abducted and briefly held policemen, and warned video shops to stop selling Western and Indian films they deemed obscene.

They caused a huge embarrassment for the government last week when they abducted nine people, including six Chinese women, from a acupuncture clinic. The detainees were released after about 17 hours.

China is Pakistan's most steadfast ally and Chinese officials told the visiting interior minister this week to better safeguard their nationals and businesses in Pakistan.

Maulana Abdul Aziz, chief cleric of the mosque, said his followers would carry out suicide attacks if the government used force.

"If the government carried out an operation then we will follow the way of jihad ... our male and female students can carry out suicide attack as a last option," he told Reuters, his face covered with a scarf