A paramilitary trooper and at least two students were killed during clashes at a mosque run by a Taliban-style movement in Islamabad today.
A cleric inside Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, said eight students had been killed in exchanges of fire, and a loudspeaker in the compound broadcast a message calling on followers of the movement to begin suicide attacks.
The clashes began when around 150 students attacked a security picket at a government office near the mosque, snatched weapons and took four officials hostage, according to police.
Paramilitary forces fired tear gas to disperse hundreds of students outside the mosque, and they came under fire from automatic weapons. Several students were taken to hospitals, suffering from the effects of the gas.
Authorities have been locked in a tense stand-off for months with the student movement, which is seeking to impose Taliban-style social values in the Pakistani capital.
Hospital officials said at least a dozen people had been admitted with gunshot wounds, including a cameraman with CNBC news channel.
Despite the shooting, dozens of students carrying staves remained on the street outside the mosque. Burqa-clad women stood on the rooftops of an adjacent Islamist school, shouting anti-government slogans, while male students guarded the entrances to the compound, some with Kalashnikov rifles.
The Red Mosque has long been known as a hotbed of Islamic radicalism. Trouble began in January when female students attached to the mosque occupied a library next to their madrasa to protest destruction of mosques built illegally on state land.