Pat Dollard | Young Americans

Red Mosque to Reopen Friday

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) - Islamabad’s Red Mosque, where more than 100 people died in fighting between Islamic militants and security forces earlier this month, plans to reopen in time for Friday prayer this week.

Also called Lal Masjid, the walls of the radical mosque and its adjoining seminary for girls were left scorched by explosions and pocked by bullets after a July 10 commando raid that ended a weeklong standoff with militants holed up inside.

Since then, the downtown mosque has been sealed off so it can be quickly repaired to calm outrage at the damage.

Kamran Leshari, the capital’s top administrator, said repair work was in full swing. “The mosque will be reopened on Friday for the prayer,” he told The Associated Press.

Authorities have yet to announce who will replace the pro-Taliban imam Maulana Abdul Aziz, who is in custody after being caught trying to flee the mosque disguised as a woman.

The fate of the Jamia Hafsa madrassa for girls and an associated seminary for boys in another part of the city are also unclear. Leshari said the residential quarters of the Jamia Hafsa and other parts badly damaged in the fighting were being torn down.

The mosque’s clerics had used the schools’ thousands of students in an aggressive campaign to impose Taliban-style Islamic law in the capital. The campaign, which included kidnapping alleged Chinese prostitutes and threatening suicide attacks to defend the fortified mosque, raised concern about the spread of Islamic extremism in Pakistan.

The commando raid and the redeployment of the army in Pakistan’s northwest have prompted a wave of suicide attacks and bombings in Pakistan that have killed scores of security forces and civilians.