The Missing Children of Lal Masjid

Post Section Start: 070711-1045 Updated:

"It opera ain't over 'til the fat lady sings," and the fat lady had a long wait at Lal Masjid.

Witte, Griffe.  "Two-Day Battle at Islamabad Mosque Ends."  The Washington Post, July 11, 2007, 10:05 a.m. EDT.

I'm sorry to have reported the end before its time, even if by hours.

The more time the militants had in negotiations, the more time they had to lay plans, to position, and to rig land mines and other ordnance for the commandos who would sweep them from the mosque.

Post Secton Start: 070710-0945 Updated: 070710-0950H EDT; 6:60 p.m. Islamabad.

It's not necessarily the story that changes by the hour but the search for language to represent it.

Here's the lead from Zeeshan Haider's piece for Reuters, "Pakistani troops storm mosque", last posted at 8:40 a.m. EDT:

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistani forces stormed a mosque compound on Tuesday, killing about 50 militants, as they fought their way through an Islamic school where they believed a rebel cleric was hiding with women and children hostages. [3]

In the minds of one or two writers--Kamran Haider earlier this morning, Zeeshan Haider now--"yet to encounter" has morphed into "fought their way through."  However subtle, just that small difference has the power to influence opinion around the world.

The cooler heads that must prevail wait, however, for the story to end and the facts to settle.

For the time being, Zeeshan Haider's piece reports 30 children and 24 women escaped from the fighting and secure and quotes Major-General Waheed Arshad, the military's spokesman, as saying, "Six of the children said they had been kept in the basement of the mosque but fled when their guards disappeared after commandos overran it." [3]

Post Section Start: 070710-0415 Updated: 070710-0500H EDT

Whatever Lal Masjid, the "Red Mosque", was as a noun representing an event, it's over.  For Reuters, Kamran Haider reports, " . . . commandos had yet to encounter any women and children, with more than two-thirds of the complex cleared." [1]

Earlier in the bulk of the action that took place between 4 a.m. and about noon in Islamabad, journalists reported commandos finding 20 children on the main floor of the mosque and ushering them to safety.

Griffe Witte's piece in The Washington Post reports the following:

By 9 a.m., at least three commandos had been killed and 15 members of the security forces had been wounded, according to a military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad. Forty radicals in the compound had been killed and scores more were wounded or captured, Arshad said. A source at a hospital that was treating civilians said the staff was handling dozens of casualties, some of them women. Security forces picked up 20 children who fled as the fighting began, while ambulances raced to and from the scene. [2]

Here's an Orwellian note: I first cited Witte's piece at 10:30 p.m. EDT.  It's now 5 a.m., EDT, and the same URL, the same piece, has been filled and smoothed into a near real-time piece of reporting.  The web may have a way to go when it comes to knowing when to "fix" or "freeze" a story as is, so we're not dealing the ye olde "memory holes."

Another partially literary observation: taking the adversarial position comes easily.

One might read into Kamran's statement ("commandos had yet to encounter any women and children, with more than two-thirds of the complex cleared') criticism of the information provided the press by the government and military, an echo to American ears of the harping over missing weapons of mass destruction early in the invasion of Iraq. 

The well worn possibilities: either the military garnered worldwide sympathy through disinformation, or the press is "out to get" the military.

There's a much less combative position: both the press and military are waiting on the rescue of women and children, if not the horror of their destruction by suicide vests.

It's early afternoon in Islamabad, and so far as I know, the verdict's still out on the missing women and children of Lal Masjid, whose numbers at minimum were supposed to have been in the hundreds.

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1. Haider, Kamran.  Pakistanis storm mosque; up to 50 dead.  Reuters, July 10, 2007, 3:11 a.m. EDT.

2. Witte, Griffe.  "Commandos Storm Mosque in Pakistan Afters Talks Founder."  Washington Post Foreign Service, The Washington Post, July 10, 2007.

3. Haider, Zeeshan.  "Pakistani troops storm mosque."  Reuters, July 10, 2007, 8:40 a.m. EDT.

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Correspondence and Permissions: James S. Oppenheim

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