A fundamentalist mosque behind a morality campaign in the Pakistani capital has guns on the premises and will defend itself if the government attempts a crackdown, a top cleric said on Wednesday.
The Lal Masjid or Red Mosque in Islamabad has caused the government headaches with its Taliban-style vice patrols and by issuing a "fatwa" against a female minister for being pictured hugging a paragliding instructor. "If it comes to a do-and-die situation we will use our right to self defence," Abdul Rashid Ghazi, the mosque's deputy leader, told AFP by telephone.
"Whatever arms we have are with licences obtained in the past through normal official procedures," he said when asked to comment on what appeared to be assault rifles carried by young devotees standing guard on the mosque's walls.
The bearded mullah refused to respond to comments by intelligence sources that the students of two Islamic schools which are attached to the mosque had stored petrol to make crude firebombs.
On Friday, Abdul Aziz, the chief cleric at the mosque in downtown Islamabad, and Ghazi's brother threatened to launch "thousands" of suicide attacks if government security forces launched an operation against the compound.
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