http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6290280.stm
And a very insightful (IMHO) article on why he’s tolerated them so far and how Pakistan came to be a hotbed of extremism.
I always feel like you could starve/smoke people out of a situation like that and end up with fewer deaths. I wonder why it wasn’t possible.
Hostages, prolonged drama, not as forceful and symbolic.
I’m kinda expecting he’ll do what the Russians did with the Chechen hostage takers in Moscow and just gas them.
Tolerated? Pakistan is nutso central. It’s a bit of a miracle Musharraf has lasted this long.
I hope not. That didn’t work out so well. They lost 129 of the 850 or so hostages. You might lose -fewer- people if you tried a similar tactic but actually told the physicians treating the hostages precisely what you’d dosed the building with, but you’d still have deaths from overdoses and people with breathing problems.
Edit: On second thought, I don’t remember any stories about there being many actual hostages in the Red Mosque. Some reports of human shields, but I don’t know whether they were willing or not.