from BBC Online

The Pakistani army says it has found 73 bodies inside a mosque compound in Islamabad, after fierce battles between soldiers and gunmen inside.

Officials said the Red Mosque, or Lal Masjid, complex had been cleared of militants but troops were combing the area for booby traps and explosives.

The mosque’s radical chief cleric, Abdul Rashid Ghazi, was among the dead, the army said.

The operation followed a week-long siege of the compound by troops.

The mosque had been the focus of spiraling tensions between the government and radical students, who had waged a campaign for the adoption of strict Islamic sharia law.

It had been feared that women and children might be among the casualties, but army spokesman Maj Gen Waheed Arshad said none had been found among the bodies.

Scores of civilians, and some militants, emerged from the complex after troops launched an all-out assault in the early hours of Tuesday morning.

read more at BBC ONLINE