Remember that Pakistan already has nuclear weapons: (via Telegraph UK)

The plane of Pervez Musharraf was fired on today as it took off from a military airfield, an intelligence officer said, in the latest apparent assassination attempt on the president of Pakistan.

Contradicting government denials, the official said the plane came under attack as it left the base in Rawalpindi, but arrived safely in the town of Turbat, where the president was due to visit flood victims.

A journalist for the Reuters news agency said he had seen two large guns mounted on the roof of a two-storey house in Rawalpindi.

Security forces sealed off the area around the house, arrested a man and seized an machine gun which had been modified for use as an anti-aircraft weapon.

Meanwhile, the siege continued at a mosque in Islamabad where the radicals holding the Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, are said to be using women and chldren as human shields:

The interior minister, Aftab Sherpao, said the radical students besieged in the Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, were armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles, hand grenades and Molotov cocktails.

"The total of casualties is 19," said Mr Sherpao. "There are 50 to 60 hardcore militants inside the mosque. They are keeping women and children who want to come out of the mosque and are not allowing them to leave."

Several students who had fled the mosque claimed in interviews with The Daily Telegraph that some men, women and children had been prevented from leaving the mosque and madrassa that houses Pakistan's largest girls' seminary.

The cross-dressing leader of the insurrection, Abdul Aziz, was captured Wednesday trying to escape from the mosque dressed in a burqua:

Aziz was captured by police on Wednesday as he tried to flee the mosque complex wearing a burqa. He told state television that about 1,000 male and female students remained inside.

"After coming out I saw the siege was massive and came to the conclusion that we should give up," he said. "The government has massive resources and I realised that people will not be able to stay inside for long."

Somewhat inexplicably Aziz made his television appearance wearing a black burqa under which his grey beard was partly visible.

The interviewer asked him to take off the veil, which he then did to reveal a bemused smile.

The cleric later appeared in court charged with plotting terrorist attacks and kidnapping people, including seven Chinese nationals abducted by his students from an acupuncture clinic for allegedly running a brothel. He was later remanded in custody.

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