The bullet-riddled walls and roofs of the Red Mosque’s interior tell the story of a fierce battle. The mosque in Islamabad was stormed by Pakistan troops to clear out Islamic militants holed up inside. The government says 10 soldiers, one policeman and 75 militants were killed in the fighting and the week-long standoff that preceded the final assault.

For six months, the halls and rooms of Jamia Hafsa, a women’s seminary inside the mosque, were home to a new breed of Islamic hardliners — women clad from head to toe in black Islamic veils, and wielding batons and assault rifles. They captured a children’s library located on one side of the mosque, kidnapped policemen who had strayed too close to the building, and kept vigil on the roofs of the seminary and the adjoining hostel.

Now their classrooms and lecture halls are littered with debris that fell from the walls when the buildings came under fire. An army spokesman says none of these women died during the week-long clashes between the troops and the militants. Apparently, there were no female hostages either.

About 1,200 women and children walked out of the seminary on July 4, after the troops started a siege of the mosque. He said at least 19 bodies found from the premises were charred by fire beyond recognition. And more than 80 women left the premises on July 10, just before the troops launched their final assault.

The army says the mother of the two brothers who ran this mosque complex, Maulana Abdul Aziz and Ghazi Abdur Rashid, was the only woman inside the hostel when the endgame began. She died along with Ghazi Rashid, her younger son, in a hall in the upper basement of the hostel.

The eastern windows of the hall overlook a narrow, deep ravine and a small group of huts on the far side. A soldier said the army fired rocket propelled grenades (RPGs) from the huts and from the cover of the trees to punch holes in the outer wall of the hall. The RPGs did not kill Ghazi Rashid. He was killed by special forces soldiers. It is unclear how his mother died.

RPGs and heavy arms fire brought down a large portion of the wall of the seminary and set on fire a large kitchen. The troops destroyed portions of the boundary wall just below the hostel building and used it as an entry point for their final assault.

Fire also broke out in several halls and rooms, destroying furniture, clothes and books. One wall of a library in the upper storey of the hostel was black from fire that had also burnt its doors to ashes, but a shelf containing registers, notebooks and some light reading material remained untouched. Other than this, the only remains from the seminary’s recent past are the weapons found in the premises, and bedding and girls’ clothing that was spared by fire. In one room, the upper part of a sewing machine lies on empty floor, a relic of a more peaceful past.
BBC News