This is but one mosque in Pakistan. I hope Musharraf cleans up all the mosques and Saudi-funded hate school madrassas throughout his country. If that means killing more extremists, martyrdom-seekers, and jihadis then so be it. The religion of peace, indeed. Hopefully, he will exterminate the terrorists in the lawless border areas of his country, too.

To John Doe -

Any religion or society that promotes any sort of violence to support any type of cause is wrong. It goes against survival of the species, which just happens to be the cornertosne of all life.

the u.s. government needs to get tough with saudia arabia. the financeing to build these so called religous schools (madrasses)all across pakistan and other muslim countries comes from sadia arabia! they also finance muslim schools and programs in the u.s prison system and other western nation prison systems to get hardened criminal to kill us here. jose padilla, the dirty bomber, and richard reed, the shoe bomber are examples. the u.s. government needs to wake up and understand that saudia arabia is our enemy. all these madrasses must be closed down. they are a breeding ground for suicide bombers. sometimes i believe that allah is SATAN. WHAT GOD ASKS ITS FOLLOWERS TO STRAP EXPLOSIVES TO THEIR BODIES TO MURDER INNOCENT MEN, WOMAN, AND CHILDREN IN HIS NAME?

The problem of these fanatics arose from the funding from countries like Saudi Arabia. Yes the wahabis in Saudia and their backers funded madarssas all over the poor muslim countries around the world.

Why because countries like Pakistan where the literacy rate is less than 50% and poverty rate is more than 70% can be a fertile breeding ground.

They would pump money into these madarssas and then these madarssas would market themselves to poor parents as the only respite for their kids.

So now the poor Parents would be told guess what we know you cant afford education for your kids and meals etc, send your kids to us we will educate them and cloth them and feed them and house them but the best part you will not have to pay for anything.

The parents poor and uneducated as they are, were like what could be better. But what they didnt know is that they were in majority of the cases striking a deal with the devil itself.

That is how they got them and that is how this cult called the Taliban got propogated. Through a so called free education system.

How do you solve this problem very simple. Use their techniques on them. Instead of spending billions on arms spend millions on education and jobs and giving these poor illetrate people a future.

Anything else is just stroking the fires.

Just another example of religious fanaticism exacting its costs. They are no different than any other religious extremest.
This is exactly why our forefathers established the USA with a doctrine of seperation of Church and State.
Makes me think of all those folk that cast their vote for GW "because he's a Christian".

When reading her story you must be aware of the Arab/Islamic cultural traits to exaggerate and claim victimhood.  When she says 40 of her friends were killed in the fire, it is likely that a few (6-8) of her friends died in that fire.  When she writes about the government suddenly erecting barb wire fences and then assaulting the compound, she leaves out the several days of warning and negociation in between.  Just my observations, since I have lived in that culture for awhile.

I pray that the Lord will have merecy on the souls of these Mullahs who preach hate by using religion. Islam is now seen as a religion of hate by the non-Muslimic world.

I fear that the Islamic facist will push non-Muslims to far. Americans may one day wake up and bring the full brunt of it's civilian and military resources down on these Mullahs spreading hate and terror. By God, I actually feel sorry for these poor bastards. When this happens America will do what it did in World War II.  Total destruction will come to those who keep preaching hate and terror.

The Mullahs should read history to see what happens to dictators in our world.

The American people are fair, tolerant and peace seeking people.  Many Americans have died to bring peace and freedom not just to Americans but for all the peoples of the world.  

Just ask any old timer who witness the cruelty provided by Nazis and Japanese Imperialist.

All Islamists are f'ing crazy. Completely and utterly crazy. It is so tpyical to hear them speak as if they were living in medieval times - islamists have not evolved - they are what we were 100's - 1000's of years ago - cruel inhumane brutes. Christiantiy has evolved and we are better for it - hell, all other religions are more evolved in their thinking than these psuedo-sapiens. They desire death... no creature on this planet desires death, not even dogs! Look at these people fighting each other all the time - over nothing. Their language is that of a mindless drone... I'm not sure if they are deserving of our pity. I say leave them alone - they do a very good job of killing themselves so let them continue doing it for another thousand years. After all they stopped contributing to humanity a long, long time ago.

The only reason we don't look like that over here with our brainwashing religion--Christianity--is that we have separation of church and state.  Without it, we would look just like this.

How is what happened there any different than what happened in Waco, Texas a decade ago?  It's no different at all and yet the republicans demanded special hearings to determine if the the poor little Branch Davidians' rights had been violated by a dictatorial govt instead of whether people were brainwashed by a sexually perverted egomaniac.  Oh, that was okay, was it?  But rebelling against a govt run by a general is unacceptable??

Is it because Bush supports this particular general despite the fact that this general almost certainly knows where bin-Laden is and almost certainly communicates with him and hides him?  And might that be why Bush no longer considers capturing bin-Laden a priority?

What's sad is that we support a despot who talks out both sides of his mouth to the point where they'd rather have a "Taliban-style govt" over him.  Of course, we have to take the word of the media that it is a Taliban-style govt.  It couldn't possibly be that maybe they're only saying that because Bush supports the general who runs that country.

As for the comments that they deserve no sympathy, I don't recall reading about them asking for any.  This girl is ready to die for what she believes in.  That used to be laudable to Christians in America--until this war started and they were afraid they might get told to put their money where their mouths are.  And if using the word "martyred" is evidence of cult-like indoctrination, need I remind you all what religion goes overbaord using that very word to praise its own suicidal kooks?

This terrorist camp was in the capital of PAKISTAN!!!!!!....Think about the situation in the Tribal Areas, Hundreds of Madrassas Thousands of TERRORISTS.
BELIEVE ME IT IS TRUE

This girl makes Scientologists sound perfectly reasonable.

And that, folks, takes some doing!

This story remind me of David Quresh in Waco, Texas. At that time I was in Dallas. I watched it live how FBI and other agencies had storm their temple. I find lot of similarities between Red Mosue and David Quresh cult.

Has anyone ever just stepped back a bit and thought for a moment....

All I can see is superficial comment and perhaps that is what is wrong with us - ready to pass comment and judgement without thought or introspection

Does The western world has a fairly large hand in this entire mess???

The Oil that we want to consume enriches a few potentates who 'throw' a few bones at these poor 'muslim' brothers in their own and neighboring countries by funding these 'madrassas' to 'occupy' the minds of these people so they can point them away from their fair share of the wealth that they are stealing! The entire ecnomy is based on oil and so there really are no jobs but handouts. Pakistan and Afghanistan does not have oil but they are part of the Islamic chain and provide labor for a lot of these countries - truck drivers, policemen, etc. and sure the folks on our side who 'control' and orchestrate things are fully in the know!

Oil is one of the most fungible commodities in this world. If OPEC does not want to sell it to us - guess what it is worthless in the ground - and they NEED the money - so what is the worst that can happen? They will sell it to the chinese and the chinese will sell it to us. Today as much as our administration derides Venezuela it remains a major supplier! So the only way to really inflate the chaos and channel the funds through select channels and private equity funds and so on you need perpetual chaos!
Now there is talk of 'selling' 40 Bil worth of arms to Saudi / Egypt and Israel. Sure we are going to get paid - through inflated prices on teh oil that we are to purchase which has ostensibly been protected by these arms ?

So all of these 'martyrs' are no more than innocent victims of the tremendous greed that pervades our society and SO ARE WE the living martyrs as our daily lives are constantly tormented by these same acts perhaps in different ways!

What we need are selfless statesmen and scholars not the run of the mill politicians who cannot see beyond the bridge of their nose!
We can only blame ourselves for the situation.
Think carefully who you choose to be your leaders!

Mahatma Gandhi said
There is enough on this earth for every man's need
But never enough for ONE MAN's GREED !

How very sad - both her 'martyr' state of mind, and MSNBC's glorification of this individual.  It is great to hear both sides of the story, but this leaves so much untold that it is not a balanced presentation, but rather a story out of context (ironically, what isn't said is that she supports a tyranny that far outstrips anything she has been subjected to, yet).

It  sounds like the forces that took them out underwent training from Janet Reno

HATRED BEGETS HATRED.
INTOLERENCE LEADS TO DESTRUCTION.
If you think yours is the only right way of life, and others have either to conform to your way or have no right to exist then ultimatly you will destroy yourselve by fighting your own people.
Tolerence to others is what "GOD" "ALLAH" expects from you. All the people whom you despise are still in this world because "HE" wishes so. Then who are you to change it.
Do not try to kill others in the name of religeon.

Re-garding the Red Mosque, I have nothing but praise for the Pakistan military in carrying out it duty in this so called place of religious instruction. That is armed to the teeth, why? given Islam's love of mankind.  Who are these Arsehole mullahs, who preach hate, they deserve to die a horrible death, and will never see paradise, they are not martyrs for their religion, but common muderers, who have no right to enter the Kingdom of God.  They should be removed from this earth with urgent dispatch, letting not their shadow darken this earth.  And if the Pakistan government cannot control this scum, the the USA Russia China, should attact the areas of Pakistan and its tribal areas and wipe these scum of the face of the earth.  As for Amnesty International you need to pack up your bags, as you are nothing more then defenders of intolerance, who's legal team are nothing more than parasites on the backs of humanity.  Think about it, all I see day in day out is Islamic bastards killing their own innocent women and children, and those carrying out these terrible crimes are promised paradise and 20 virgins in the afterlife, get real wake up, you bloody unadulterated scum.  

Just remember, these people are coming to your town, building their mosques, planting their seeds of hate and terrorism.  And, there is nothing you can do about it..our society is open to it, our government wont do anything about it.  So, remember when you hear their calls for your death, we didnt do anything to stop them.  Why?

It demonstrates the fact we're fighting the war on terror in the wrong place. We'll never win on the battlefield if the next generation follows the same path. The Arab dictatorships preach cooperation but allow these schools to persist,while our State Dept. holds them up as partners in the war on terror.

These people we are reading about believe in a religious philosophy that was created centuries before the world was known--NOT TO BE FLAT!

They are completely out-of-touch with 21st century Earth.

Keep in mind...these people don't go to school to learn pluralistic/tolerant values.  They ONLY learn the (us vs. them) hatred dogma of their "religion"---and that they 'only' are morally superior and that the rest of us are second class humans who have cast our own fate by not beliving in their centuries old religious philosophy.

Yet...They have zero evidence that their philosophy is real.  Zero Evidence...Nada...Nothing in hand.

It is ignorence that we are witnessing today on a pandemic scale that could very well lead to WW3 with mushroom clouds.

Thanks Islamofacists for your religousness and leading 'Allah's' world to the brink of annihilation.

Why do we continue to entertain such stories??!! There is no cure for sick minds, in regards to Muslim radicals, that is all they possess. In search of sanity, those people will forever be lost...

The issue as I see it is the attempt to legislate morality.  Morality is a personal issue in most cases and no one would want to be told to follow a religious scism that is not there's.  In the US, how would Muslims feel if a 'Christian' Ethos was law.  They would be forced to follow anothers religious traditions.  This is the reason for a seperation of church and state.  I do not want my morality legislated.

I am a muslim I have not seen such a representation of Islam.These mullas has depicted religion according to their own stupid believes.Allthey are doing is brainwashing childrens for their develish acts.These burqa clad ladies should have met their fate long ago but thanks to Musharraf.They had created lawlessnes for long time,they were misused while those mullahs saving their own life behind burqas.I think every one believe in Karma.They should have been severely dealt by the government and wiped out from the face of the earth.They sould better know Islam means Peace.

I have lived and worked in the Muslim world (different countrys)for 5 years. I am well aware of what the Muslim world thinks of us as westeners. They want to do one of two things to us and that is convert us or kill us and not necessarily in that order,

i have lived in that part of the world amoung these fenatic pepole. they bring this type of problems on them selfs no body should feel sory for them

Stay Strong...YOU STAY STRONG!

Pakistan is a worldly known nursery of terrorism, a big sanctuary for terrorists; India is the only country that can deal with Pakistan with the moral support of United Stats and Israel. Boost Indian government in stead of General Musharraf.

Christians and Moslems keep fighting because Fanatic Muslims keep killing (infidel)Christians intill the Christians kill them back. I find it funny Moslems are always talking about The Crusdaders who invaded the Holy Land. Conviently forgetting it was a shared Christian/Jewish Holy Land in till Moslems conguered it and forced everyone to convert to Islam (or die)Incidently the Crusades started when the Mullah of Juresalem ordered the Christian church burned down (When it was full of all the Christians they could find) So the Moslems could build the Mosque that sits there today. And I suppose yall missed the fact that the Paki security forces let it go on for 6 MONTHS before they did anything. Plus they warned them before they burned them out. Heck the ATF/FBI didn't give the Davidians in WACO half that much chance, or let the survivors go free for that matter.

While I agree to some of the posters on this blog, I, however, do not agree to the fact that some of these posters are so ignorant that religion is simply a tool to manipulate people to carry out such acts. I am a Muslim, Alhumdulilah -- but religion has been my spiritual connection to God (some might even dispute this, but please leave it for later) and a way of my life. Most of what Islam taught me was similar to what most other religions do. It by no means states that becoming a martyr is above all. I have a family to take care of, living through the timely hardships of raising children in a community, making sure they turn out to be responsible, educated and respected individuals is a Jihad in its own.
My condolences to everyone family or individual impacted by this unfortunate event, it wasn't something easy to witness and live with, especially coming from a Pakistani background, it made matters all the more difficult. But at the end of the day, not everyone's upbringing is the same, the elite enjoy a lavish, extravagant and educated (at times) life in Pakistan, but those in the middle socio economical state have fewer choices. Additionally, the problem in Pakistan is that many parents and elders of that social status prefer religious education over anything   else -- or many a times, they have no other option to go with. Lack of worldly education is one of the major contributors to such an event. People recruited into a madrassah (Islamic school) are very much brain-washed if the teachers are focused on the same agenda of teaching religion and nothing but religion. Schools of this nature need to be more along the lines of what many private Christian schools in the U.S and elsewhere are. Provide that religious education, but it should be only a subset of other courses in the curriculum. It certainly saddens me as a Muslim that a civilization, which was once at the forefront of all major topics, be it religion, science, mathematics, geography, astrology and what not, is now running in time backwards. This is not an issue with just Pakistan, several other countries in the middle-east and south-asia face the problem. The only key to joining the growing globalization movement is by educating the young, while keeping the abreast on religious topics just as well.

This is such a sad story of struggling to survive for Habiba Aslam and her family. It is hard to believe that people in this world have to endure this kind of occurence in their lives. Her quote at the end is very powerful and does carry much meaning. I do hope she and her family can live peacefully. This region carries so much hardship for the citizens. I hope peace comes soon for them. Peace to all.

Everybody has the right to live the live they way he or she like, or wutever he or she wants to believe in. When we say we wanna spread freedon in the world then doen't it mean the freedom of choice????? evrybody should choose wutever he or she like. why everybody is goin after the muslims in the world, only coz they wanna follow their religion completely. Why??????????????????

I'm sorry, but something does not quite ring true about this girl's story.  I'm sure that she was in the mosque during the seige, but I think that her current show of defiance and dedication is just that - a show.  Under the Taliban in Afghanistan, women that painted their nails had them PULLED OUT.  I'm not saying that they would do the same in Pakistan, but certainly, if a young woman is so firmly indoctrinated in Taliban beliefs that she refers to her dead friends as "martyrs", she would never even consider wearing such a bold adornment.  Someone is stretching the truth a little here...

So it's bad when these sect-members incite violence in Iraq to effect change in a government they don't want.

But it's good when the US military incites violence in Iraq to effect change in a government the President didn't like.

Gotta love the double-standards!  

I'm just wondering when Bush, the 'Leader' who started this whole thing will put himself in harms way.

You pro-war joe-jobbers in fly-over states crack me up.  Why don't you guys enlist and serve instead of berating the poor Iraqis caught in the crossfire?  Then you could earn a little extra money, instead of sponging off of the more liberal states which can operate in the black without redistribution of wealth.

Ta!

Am getting sick of Islamic terrorism...

Brainwashed - lol - you reap as you sow. It was CIA/US who taught teachers of this young lady the lesson of Jihad and way to heaven and used them against Russia in Afghanistan (80s). Now the new generation of Mullahs has turned against their own cousins, the Uncle Sam's generation of 20th century. Had US planted love, justice and education in that part of the world, situation would have been altogehter different.

Religion IS Inherently Divisive.

...And because religion is a platform for the formation and promotion of Hatred...it must be Continuously Stigmatized for what it is--BIGOTRY.

Brainwashed...Pure and simple.

How about tolerance?

Just a thought,  why is this girl risking her life by painting her nails bright orange, then hiding them under the birka.   I would think  in the Islamic fundamental world that is a big No no.   It shows she has some independant thought and expression. She says one thing and does another.  What is up with that?

I hope intelligence agents have thoroughly gleaned all useful info they could from her.

@ muslima in cleveland: The orange nails the article refers to, are to the best of my knowledge, caused by the henna the women in the madrassa put on, when they were preparing for their deaths. its not a bold fashion statement, rather an islamic tradition.

i am a resident of islamabad, and my office is in a sector adjacent to the red mosque. the day the shootout started, i had gone to my bank, which is right next to the red mosque and i saw the rangers very casually putting barbed wires around the building. everything else was completely normal, people were going around minding their own business. the government or the rangers made no attempts to warn civilians of what was about to happen, the area was not sealed, no curfew was launched, absolutely nothing. my friend and i laughed about how the crazy female ninjas were probably upto something again, by the time we got back to office we heard about the shootout. even then we expected it to probably end that day, but the way the aggression stretched on and the way people died, it was well to be very frank very disturbing and very unexpected. and infact it was only after civilians got shot by stray bullets that the government put a curfew in that sector.

i am a liberal working woman and i personally look down upon the whole mullah mindset. but you have to realize that the way the events progressed, the actions and the reactions were not strategically planned at all. it was more of a spur of the moment thing and things got really out of hand as opposed to what the red mosque clerics had planned and what the government had planned. this is the kind of situation in which everyone is at fault. the kind of people who send their children to these madrassa are very very poor, they cant afford proper education, and as already pointed out the large family units, create many financial frustrations. these people are generally very frustrated, religion is just an excuse that they use to vent out their frustrations and aggression. the ironic thing about rebels at lal masjid is that they were waging war against people like us, the liberal not burka-clad well-to-do population. because they have found a way to justify their resentment for the upper class, by calling them all infidels. even though we are all muslims, but they refuse to accept that. its almost as if these burka-clad women want to kill us all, because they are forced to wear a burka while the likes of us dont, and they've been deprived of watching movies and listening to music. to me this explanation makes more sense, because these people are not sitting in kashmir or palestine, fighting for freedom. they havent faced any oppression at all, they are sitting in the most idyllic and peaceful city in pakistan and they want to wage war! against what? what has anyone done to them to push them to that point? absolutely nothing! except their low self-esteems and financial complexes and frustrations. thats the main culprit here, not islam.

having said that, the way the government dealt with the whole situation was absolutely wrong. it became quite clear from the way they refused to pay heed to the negotiation attempts and simply shot down molana rasheed, that they went in with the intent to kill him. i understand that some level of combat was necessary, but they most certainly could have avoided killing so many people. the death toll as most believe is above a 1000 people. many of which were women and children. there are hundreds of people missing from the lists displayed of people who died or survived, their families are still in dark about their children. where are those people? people are speculating that the government used bombs and deadly gases in the middle of the night to clear the area, which is against internation war laws. and the people who died in course are the ones that they are refusing to talk about. the government treated these people like they were not even citizens of the country. like they were some animals, that were ok to kill, in the course of finding militants. each and every one of those students was a citizen of pakistan with as much rights as any other. the government could have used gases to make people unconscious, arrested them and put them to trial in courts if they were guilty, but what justified killing them on spot? why were their lives so dispensible? why werent they given a chance to fight their case before the law? the government is as guilty of homicide as the militants are. had the militants takenover a prestigious school where the children from rich families went to study, the government would not have acted in this manner, they would have saved the lives of each and every student. but because the lives of the poor with no proper education, no welfare from the state were at risk, the government couldn't care less. such is the state of our sorry land. they were all at fault.

I'm glad everyone's so quick to judge her. Her upbringing I'll pretty much guarantee is 100% different than what any of us know. Who are we to say she is brainwashed? She chose to be there because she believes in an idea. An idea just as strongly as Christians believe in their faith or as atheists don't. At least she's willing to die for her cause. Which is more than a lot of people here are willing to do.

To Sana Attiq --- thank you for the clarification [a clarification that should perhaps have been made by the reporter].  It is so difficult to separate truth from fiction in the media these days, that I am afraid I may have become a bit cynical.  

I am aware of many of the reasons for the fundamentalist upswing in Pakistan, but you stated the case much more eloquently than I could. Again, thank you - I hope that others in this forum take note of your comments, and realize that not all Muslim women, are repressed and mistreated, and not all Muslim men are terrorists, fundamentalists, or barbarians.

My husband's family lives in Karachi, which - although has it's problems - has thanks to Allah, not had to deal with the same level of violence and apprehension that you have in Islamabad.  My prayers go out to you and your family, and I wish you continued safety and peace.  

Yes it is true that there are radical muslims, but not all muslims are behind them. Islam doesn't teach violence and what they call jihad is definitely not! they have made their own interpretation which is wrong and used that as an excuse for all the violence! it is also true that their government is corrupt, but thats an entirely different argument!!

It's clear that Pakistan is a nation at a crossroads. One part of it wants to move forward like its bigger neighbor, India, into the democratic modern world. But another part of it is afraid of that leap forward and wants to remain in the dubious safety of religious fundamentalism --- of the worst sort.

This is a terribly sad situation.  No one, no matter what religion they follow, what gender they are, or where they live in the world, should have to live through such violence.  Wasn't that part of the message of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, and so many other heroes of civil rights?  People die all around the world as "martyrs" every day.  The sadness of this name lies not in the fact that they call themselves "martyrs", but in the truth that people are *dying*.  As a Christian woman, I feel sorry for this girl because she has suffered.  Please take pity on her and other victims of violence, no matter what their race, color, sex, or creed.

After reading the comments here, is it any wonder the americans are hated world wide? Apparently you'r supposed to be spreading freedom and democracy yet you're gov't supports a non-elected leader i.e musharraf? The Red mosgue is a well renowned institution that has helped THOUSANDS of Pakistan's orhpans; yet thanks to the U.S Media (that's you MSNBC)they've all been painted as radicals! Disgusting.

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