Pakistani Prez warns of extremist threats

ISLAMABAD: President Pervez Musharraf on Friday said suicide bombers were holed up in a mosque in the capital and that extremists pose the "gravest threat" to Pakistan.

The warning about extremist threats to Pakistan comes amid a gathering campaign for Musharraf, a close US ally against terrorism, to step down and put an end to eight years of military rule.

In Islamabad, authorities are locked in a five-month stand off with a downtown mosque where radicals have repeatedly kidnapped alleged prostitutes and police officers in a drive to impose a harsh version of Islamic law.

Speaking to reporters, Musharraf said security forces were ready to raid the Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque to end its vigilante campaign.

But he said female students from an adjoining seminary were ready to carry out suicide attacks to defend the complex.  He said members of Jaish-e-Mohammed, a banned miitant group with links to al-Qaida, were also in the mosque.

"They are suicide bombers. They have explosives," Musharraf said at a journalism seminar.

"I am not a coward, but there is a problem. There is a very serious problem that there are committed peope" in the mosque, Musharraf said.

Observers cite the Red Mosque's continued defiance as a further example of how extremists are extending their influence across Pakistan.

Pro-Taliban militants hold sway in the tribal zone bordering Afghanisan and hardline clerics and their followers are flexing their muscles across much of the northwest.