Red Mosque hostage kids tell parents: We are martyrs
Cleric: 'The boys are the 1st line of defense, then the girls ... they will fight to the death'
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted: July 8, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com
The radical leader of Islamabad's Red Mosque, under siege for the last six days by hundreds of Pakistan troops, said the 1,800 children he claims are still in the religious-school complex have taken oaths on the Quran to fight to the death, a frightening possibility confirmed by frantic parents who have spoken by cell phone with sons and daughters who say they soon hope to be martyrs.
"I spoke to my daughter. She said there was no food or water left," said Luftullah Khan, a shopkeeper, who was able to get through to them on their cell phone. "I tried to arrange a meeting, but she said, 'We're here – my dead body will be here. I will not leave my teachers'."
Followers of Abdul Rashid Ghazi, leader of the pro-Taliban mosque, said yesterday 30 girls had been buried in a mass grave inside the complex.
The six-day siege has been mostly restrained, with the military wanting to avoid massive bloodshed. Children from two madrassas, or religious schools, are being held in the mosque. According to London Sunday Times, they have been moved to the basement of the complex.
Yesterday, the army shelled sections of the wall surrounding the complex, bringing them down, and fired tear gas at the militants, but avoided a direct attack on the mosque.
"We have reports that women and children have been locked in the basement floors. If we blow any of the walls, the whole building would collapse on them," one officer told the Times.
Click here for the full story! (may need to disable pop-up blocker)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment