The English language media broadly agreed that having allowed “a state within the state” by the activities of Islamists and foreign fighters in a mosque in the heart of the capital, and having dilly-dallied in acting against them, the government was left with no choice but to take the military action to its logical conclusion.
Daily Times of Lahore, that last week compared the situation at Lal Masjid to Operation Bluestar against Sikh militants carried out at the Golden Temple in Amritsar in 1984 by India, urging the Pakistan government to take “a difficult decision”, carried its argument further by recalling the 1999 hijacking of an Indian aircraft by militants to Kandahar.
India had no choice but to release the militants, since it could not engage in an operation in Afghanistan, it said.
But India “has not been able to forgive itself for its mistake,” it noted, adding that the terrorists released by India, including Maulana Masood Azhar who found his way back to Karachi’s Jamia Binoria, “went on to commit history’s worst crimes.”
The editorials were generally critical of a soft line and of politicians and clerics advocating a negotiated settlement. “Those who advocated safe passage for Mr Ghazi (the mosque’s deputy cleric who died in the operation) and his terrorists wrongly believe, together with Imran Khan (cricketing legend-turned opposition lawmaker), that General Musharraf has ‘unleashed an artificial war in Pakistan to please the Americans’,” Daily Times said.
It cautioned: “The inmates of Lal Masjid will be lionised by some while the damage in the shape of women and children killed will be pinned on the government as ‘criminal neglect of life of the common man’.”
‘Cleric gave clues’
Lal Masjid chief cleric Maulana Abdul Aziz, who had tried to escape from the mosque disguised in a burqa, provided the government with vital clues before the security forces stormed the complex.
The information gleaned from Aziz during interrogation played a key role in tracking the network of militants inside Lal Masjid premises, The News said.
Military spokesman Maj Gen Waheed Arshad told the cabinet on Tuesday that Aziz had confessed “harbouring high value targets carrying head money in millions”. A cabinet source said the ministers were briefed about the presence of foreign militants. They were also told about how the masjid brigade used to operate and the number of tunnels dug under the complex.

BUSH REITERATES SUPPORT
Washington, PTI: US President George W Bush has praised Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf’s role in checking extremism after the military stormed Lal Masjid in a war against terror. “Musharraf is a strong ally in the war against extremists. I like him and I appreciate him,” Bush said.
He also called the uniformed president a partner in the promotion of democracy. “I’m of course, constantly working with him to make sure that democracy continues to advance in Pakistan. He has been a valuable ally in rejecting extremists. And that’s important, to cultivate those allies,” he said.
“...this is hard for some Americans to understand, we are at the beginning stages of a major ideological struggle that will affect the security of the US, and it’s a struggle between moderation and extremists. It’s a struggle between radicals who kill and rational people who want to live in peace,” Bush added. He also urged people to reject radicalism, and not the “great religion” of Islam.