Islamabad: Pakistan President Gen Pervez Musharraf has served an ultimatum to the militants holed up inside the Lal Masjid, giving them the option to surrender or die.
In a blunt warning to the hundreds of radical students and militants holed up inside the mosque complex, Musharraf said they must surrender failing which they would all be killed.
During his visit to Balochistan to oversee relief work for flood-affected people, Musharraf said those holed up in the radical mosque in the heart of Islamabad "must surrender or else they will killed".
"No compromise would be made on peace and writ of the law will be ensured all over the country at all costs," Dawnnews TV quoted him as saying during his visit to provincial capital Quetta.
To back up his threat, Pakistani security forces have already launched a fresh assault on the perimeter of the Lal Masjid.
After the curfew was relaxed in the area for an hour in the morning, several blasts were heard and the outer walls of mosque were partly breached. A heavy exchange of fire was also reported in the area.
The cleric in-charge of Lal Masjid, Maulana Abdul Rashid Ghazi, has however refused to give up. On Saturday morning, security forces took control of Jamia Faridia, another seminary for boys which is near the Lal Masjid complex.
Meanwhile a 70-member religious delegation is near the mosque to meet Abdul Rashid Ghazi inside Lal Masjid. But due to heavy firing, the delegation has been stopped at a security check-post. They are there to negotiate an end to the deadlock between the Musharraf Government and Mualana Ghazi.
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