Graphic: the Red Mosque in Islamabad

The leader of the Islamic rebels at the Red Mosque in Islamabad was shot dead today as the compound was stormed by Pakistani commandos.

Abdul Rashid Ghazi was killed in the crossfire as he tried to surrender to the Pakistani forces, an interior ministry spokesman said.

“He was spotted in the basement and asked to come out. He came out with four or five militants who kept on firing at security forces,” said Brigadier Javed Cheema.

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“The troops responded and in the crossfire he was killed."

The commandos began their assault early this morning on the mosque compound, where a large band of Islamist militants, many of them veterans of fighting in Afghanistan and Kashmir, had been holding out for over a week along with clerics and an unknown number of women and children hostages.

The assault began less than an hour after negotiations between the country’s leaders and the rebels broke down.

In the first eight hours of the attack at least 50 militants and eight soldiers were killed, said Major General Waheed Arshad, an army spokesman.

Pakistani special forces began by clearing the northern part of the sprawling compound, he said, starting with the mosque and its adjoining buildings. They were moving slowly from room to room, using stun grenades and calling out for any hostages or innocents caught up in the assault to show themselves so they could be taken to safety.

Major General Arshad said that many of the remaining fighters, along with Mr Ghazi - the top-ranking cleric still inside - and up to about 150 women and children, had moved to a basement of the religious school, or madrassa, in the southern part of the compound.

A few fighters had taken up firing positions in the mosque's minarets. He said that the rebel fighters were well trained and well armed, and were using heavy weaponry including rocket propelled grenades and machine guns as well as small arms. Booby traps had been left in some of the compound's 75 rooms.

"Those who surrender will be arrested, but the others will be treated as combatants and killed," said Major General Arshad. Ambulances were taking wounded on both sides to hospitals.

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