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Ghazi killed in operation silence: Reports

munaeem | 10 July, 2007 14:21

The deputy chief of Lal mosque Abdul Rasheed Ghazi has been killed in operation silence lunched against the militants holed up in the Lal mosque, the reports said on Tuesday.

Abdul Rashid Ghazi, a militant Islamic cleric who had vowed to die with his students inside an Islamabad mosque rather than surrender to Pakistani forces, once had a relatively moderate lifestyle.

Ghazi, the deputy leader of the Red Mosque, was holed up in a basement with several women and children on Tuesday after troops raided the compound, officials said. At least 58 people have died in the assault.

The bespectacled, articulate 43-year-old -- who attended a madrassa in his youth -- was remembered as a moderate pupil by a professor at the moderate Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad.

"He was a normal, moderate student who was well adjusted to a co-educational system," Naim Qureshi, one of Ghazi's history professors said.

Ghazi did a master's degree in history in 1987-88. A photo of him and his classmates still hangs on the history department's wall.

"In studies he was okay but I don't remember his grades. I remember that he had a normal beard," Qureshi said, comparing it with the bushy, grey, Islamist-style beard that Ghazi now sports.

Ghazi married into a moderate family and lived a relatively westernised life. He got a government job in the education ministry and also worked with UNESCO, the UN's culture organisation.

"Ghazi used to share jokes, often spoke in English, moved in mixed company and was an active student," said a university friend who asked not to be named.

His father, Abdullah Aziz, who founded the Red Mosque, was so angry about his lifestyle that he handed over his property to his brother, current mosque leader Abdul Aziz.

Abdul Aziz was caught last Wednesday trying to flee the compound in a burqa.

Ghazi completely changed after his father was shot dead inside the mosque by a lone gunman, thought to be from a rival Islamic group. He joined his brother Abdul, who took over the mosque in 1998 and nominated him as his deputy.

Ghazi also established links with Pakistani intelligence services, who earlier had used his father and brother to help foster Islamists who would support the anti-Soviet "jihad" in Afghanistan and the subsequent rise to power of the Taliban.

When the 9/11 attacks took place in the United States, friends said no trace of the "old", westernised Ghazi remained. But he also began to move away from his state sponsors.

Security sources said he had close links with pro-Taliban militants and agitated against President Pervez Musharraf's decision to back the US-led invasion of Afghanistan.

Colleagues said that in 2004 he survived an attempt on his life and since then had always carried a Kalashinkov with him. "You always find an AK-47 in his car, with him in the madrassa and even at his bedside," one colleague said.

By 2007, Ghazi and Aziz had become entirely committed toward turning Pakistan into a Taliban-style Islamic state.

Their students raided music stores and brothels, and kidnapped people allegedly involved in "vice", including seven people from Pakistan's closest ally and biggest military supplier, China.

Since the mosque came under siege a week ago, Ghazi has repeatedly said that he would rather be "martyred" than give in to the government.

Rasool Bakhsh Raees, a professor of political science at the Lahore University of Management and Sciences, said Ghazi was foolish to take on the government in the first place.

"No sane person could think of doing that," he said.

Update : Interior Ministry confirmed his death.

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