Shooting breaks out at Pakistan mosque

Shooting broke out at a radical mosque in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad today after students clashed with police deployed there.

Students from the Lal Masjid mosque opened fire on the police and paramilitary rangers, who fired tear gas at crowds near the mosque, according to a photographer for The Associated Press.

A man used the mosque’s loudspeakers to order suicide bombers to get into position.

“They have attacked our mosque, the time for sacrifice has come,” the man said.

Police official Mohammed Asif said two officers were injured and a cleric at the mosque said one student suffered a bullet wound.

Authorities have been at loggerheads with the mosque for months over a land dispute and after student followers of its radical clerics began a campaign to impose their version of Islamic law in the capital.

The students have carried out a string of kidnappings of police officers and alleged prostitutes and have threatened suicide attacks if security forces intervene.