Boots, beards, burqas and bombs
The Pakistan Army emerged victorious from the Lal Masjid battle that took place in Islamabad on 10 July, following a week's standoff. But it is a victory achieved at a heavy price. The bloodshed in the Red Mosque upped the ante in the ongoing war between the "boots and the beards", to use the terminology of young Pakistanis for the military and the religious extremists. The story also involves the burqas – hundreds of young girls and women affiliated with the Jamia Hafsa girls' madrassa adjacent to the mosque became an integral part of the story.
By the end of the army operation, the mosque's name, derived from the red bricks with which it is built, took on a new, bloody connotation. Elite units of the Pakistan Army pounded the sprawling two-acre compound with automatic and chemical weapons for more than 12 hours, fiercely resisted by armed militants inside. By the end of the fighting, over 70 of the mosque's affiliates, including their leader, Ghazi Abdul Rasheed, were dead. So were ten army men. The number of dead may have been much higher than the official number, however. Some were burnt beyond recognition, and may have included women and children. Smoke that still lingered over the site two days later was identified as residue from the Pakistan Army's use of White Phosphorus, a hot-burning substance prohibited by the Geneva Convention for use against civilians.