Pakistani security forces have killed Abdul Rashid Ghazi, the besieged leader of Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, in Islamabad in a day-long assault on the complex, the interior ministry said.
Other reports said Ghazi was killed by (his) followers when he tried to surrender.
There was no way of independently verifying the claims. The Pakistani army also said up to 95 per cent of the compound had been cleared after more than 16 hours of fighting.
More than 50 armed fighters and eight soldiers have been killed so far in the raid, the military has said. Kamal Hyder, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Islamabad, said: "The fighting is really intense [and] is concentrating on the lower part of the building, some of the basement and a cave complex, we're told."
An Al Jazeera source said Uzbek fighters, armed with grenades and RPGs, were putting up the fiercest resistance and were also suspected of holding women and children hostage.
Hyder said it was unprecedented that Pakistan's elite force would struggle from before dawn into the evening to defeat the fighters.
"But the army is saying they are in control of the situatuion, they have already taken 95 per cent control, and the fighting is now slow, because they say they want to save maxiumum lives," Hyder said.
'Sanctity violated'
Major General Waheed Arshad, the chief military spokesman, told reporters on Tuesday that the armed students were firing on security forces from the minarets.
"About three or four terrorists have occupied the minarets. They are violating the sanctity of the mosque," Arshad said.
He added that the northern part of the mosque was cleared, enabling several women in burqas and around 30 children to escape, but the fighting was still going on in the southern part.
Hundreds remained inside as soldiers went through the compound's 75 rooms one at a time, facing bitter resistance.
"It is a final push to clear the mosque of armed militants," Arshad said.
"We are taking a step-by-step approach, a very deliberate approach, to make sure there is no collateral damage unnecessarily," he told reporters.
Al Jazeera's Rageh Omaar said the mosque compound is a large and complex building which will take the military a long time to cover.
The army will have to go room by room in a thorough search for those still inside, he said.
He added that there was no sign of the armed students giving themselves up.
Pakistani forces began storming the mosque compound after negotiations to an end a bloody weeklong standoff broke down.
Arshad said security forces launched an operation at 4am (23:00 GMT on Monday) "to clear the madrasa of militants".
Failed talks
Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, a former prime minister and ruling party leader who led negotiations with those inside, said the final effort to secure a peaceful solution had failed.
"I am returning very disappointed," he said.
The deal was believed to have been arranged after Hussain met Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's president.
Security forces had previously held back from mounting a full-scale assault because of fears for the safety of women and children that they said were being held hostage by Ghazi.
Ghazi said he had nearly 2,000 followers with him and that no one was being held hostage.
Source: Al Jazeera and agencies
Pakistani rebel cleric 'killed'
A Pakistani cleric and 50 militants are killed after troops storm a rebellious mosque in Islamabad, officials say.
In pictures: Red Mosque assault
Obituary: Abdul Rashid Ghazi
Eyewitness: Red Mosque siege
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz on Tuesday said the government’s well-thought out strategy to save the lives of maximum people including children and women, who were held hostages in the Lal Masjid and Jamia Hafsa, has been successful.
“Saving the lives of maximum people was the center-point of government’s strategy and with the safe retrieval of 1300 children, women and men from Lal Masjid and Jamia Hafsa, we have been successful in our objective”, the Prime Minister said while chairing a special cabinet meeting here.
The Prime Minister said the government made every effort to resolve the issue through dialogue, but the Lal Masjid and Jamia Hafsa administration did not respond positively.
He said,attempts were being made to resolve the issue amicably even until Tuesday morning, but the course of dialogue stopped, particularly, “when we were told that there are foreign militants in the Lal Masjid and Jamia Hafsa and safe passage was being sought for them.”
He said, the government was deeply grieved over the loss of lives in Jamia Hafsa operation, which was caused by the unyielding attitude of the Jamia Hafsa administration.
The Prime Minister said extremists in Jamia Hafsa damaged the country’s image and brought a bad name to our religion.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
ISLAMABAD: With the death of the deputy chief of Lal mosque Abdul Rasheed Ghazi, the operation silence has entered into a decisive phase as the troops fought daylong gunbattles with the militants holed up in Lal mosque leaving scores dead on the eighth day of the operation on Tuesday.
Massive blasts and gunfire rocked the Red Mosque for 16 hours, sending plumes of smoke billowing above the Islamabad city and raising fears about the fate of scores of women and children inside the complex.
The government said the death of Abdul Rashid Ghazi was a major setback to the rebels, some allegedly linked to Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, who fought with rocket-propelled grenades and sniped at soldiers from the minarets.
The cleric died "in a hail of bullets" after troops spotted him in the basement where he spent most of the day barricaded with some children and women, interior ministry spokesman Brigadier Javed Cheema said.
"
Ghazi came out with four or five militants who kept on firing at security forces. The troops responded and in the crossfire he was killed," Cheema said.
"It is a big blow to the extremist element in the country and a lesson for others."
Director General ISPR Major General Waheed Arshad said troops had secured 80 percent of the complex and were moving slowly as "the resistance is intense in the remaining area."
He said over 50 militants and eight soldiers were confirmed dead and at least 29 soldiers were wounded.
Around 60 women and children have so far emerged from the complex since the dawn assault was launched, but many more are still believed to be inside.
"The militants are using women and children as human shields," he added.
The militants had booby-trapped much of the compound and "have turned the mosque into a trench for them, they have violated the sanctity of the mosque," Arshad said.
It was not clear how many militants or civilians were still inside. The government has spoken of 100 militants, and 300 to 400 women and children hostages. Mosque leaders have denied holding civilians as human shields and insisted all those in the compound were there voluntarily.
Fifty militants surrendered after they were given a final chance during a break in the fighting.
The military also said that the wife and daughter of Abdul Aziz, Ghazi's brother and the official head of the mosque, who was captured trying to flee in a woman's burqa on Wednesday, were among a group of civilians freed.
A man who picked up one of the mobile phones belonging to Ghazi before his death said there were "dead bodies everywhere."
In one of his final calls, made to a private television channel shortly after the raid, Ghazi accused the government of being insincere in its efforts to resolve the crisis.
"
These people want nothing but genocide," Ghazi said.
More than 1,200 male and female students fled the mosque earlier in the standoff.
Minutes before the raid, top government negotiator Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, a former Pakistani premier, announced that 11 hours of negotiations with Ghazi had failed.
Street battles broke out on July 3 between police and the mosque's radical students, and it has been under a 24-hour shoot-on-sight curfew ever since.
Officials have said militant commanders are inside, including some from the extremist group Harkatul-Jihad-e-Islami, which has been accused of involvement in the murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl and an attempt to kill Musharraf.
It is pertinent to mention here that Geo News gave breaking news about the death of Abdul Rasheed Ghazi first of all at 6:52PM.