Radical Islamist students have shot dead a Pakistani soldier in clashes outside a rebellious mosque in the capital, Islamabad, officials say.
The clashes injured several others with many students hurt by police tear gas.
Firing by both sides is continuing. Security forces have now taken up positions around the mosque.
Armed students and clerics at the Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) have openly defied the authorities for months in their campaign for Islamic Sharia law.
Injured
The BBC's Syed Shoaib Hasan who is outside the mosque says sporadic shooting by both sides can still be heard, several hours after gunfire first broke out.
He says regular police and paramilitary units ringing the mosque compound have now been replaced by what appear to be special forces. Ambulances and journalists have been told to move further away.
Dozens of students - mostly armed with sticks and petrol bombs, but some with guns and wearing masks - are patrolling around the mosque.
The authorities have been stopping and checking ambulances ferrying the wounded from the mosque to hospital.
Uninjured students were detained. In one instance, a student escaped arrest, narrowly dodging bullets fired at him by security personnel.
The death of the paramilitary soldier is believed to be the first casualty in the stand-off between the authorities and the students.
"I can confirm that one of our troopers has been killed in the firing from inside the mosque," a senior paramilitary official, Masha Allah, told reporters outside the Lal Masjid.
Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao said later that the man had died of his injuries in hospital.
At least one policeman is also reported to have been wounded.
The students say scores of people from the mosque have been affected by the tear gas, with two in a serious condition. One has bullet wounds, the students say.
Doctors at a nearby hospital confirmed they were treating about 60 people suffering the effects of tear gas, the Associated Press news agency reported. Several students had bullet wounds, doctors said.
Kidnappings
There are two religious schools (madrassas) attached to the mosque, one for men, one for women.
The trouble started when a group of female students came out in large numbers and the paramilitary police used tear gas against them.
Extra police had been deployed around the mosque earlier in the day.
An official said the move was to prevent the seminary students from taking the law into their own hands.
Mosque leaders say the security forces started the trouble by erecting barricades near the mosque.
The Lal Masjid and its seminaries have been at the centre of a number of confrontations with the authorities. They include the kidnapping of police and people the mosque says are involved in immoral activities.
Critics have attacked the government for failing to enforce its authority in the capital.
Correspondents say the authorities seem unwilling or unable to act. President Musharraf has said security forces cannot raid the mosque for fear of reprisal suicide attacks.
http://imageshack.us
Shot at 2007-07-03
http://imageshack.us
Shot at 2007-07-03