intruders covered their faces and broke down the front door. They ransacked the home, then kidnapped the three women and the baby who lived there.

No one was arrested, despite a standoff with police. And neighbors welcomed the dozens of kidnappers, mostly female Islamic students who took the hostages back to their school, because the women, dressed in black from head to toe, and a few male supporters were doing what the police never could: shutting down Aunty Shamim's brothel.

"We were trying to curb anything immoral," said student Hamna Abdullah, 20, from the Jamia Hafsa, the school run by the neighboring Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque. "We did not misbehave. We treated them very gently."

The women from the brothel were released two days later, on March 29, after the owner repented. Later she denied it was a brothel. Yet the kidnapping has raised fears that a new Islamic morality campaign has spread to Islamabad from the remote tribal areas where pro-Taliban militants hold sway. And it is only one example of the vice war being waged by the Red Mosque, which has turned into a serious problem for the Pakistani government, unsure of how to push back against Islamists, especially women wielding sticks or even guns.

The mosque underscores how Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, weakened by his controversial removal of the nation's Supreme Court chief last month, is caught between fundamentalists and the West, trying to control religious extremists as he pushes pro-American policies that have alienated much of Pakistan.

Suicide attacks threatened

At a public event Saturday, Musharraf said he wants to talk with clerics about how to resolve the Red Mosque crisis, blaming mosque leaders for wanting to impose their view of Islam on Pakistan.

"These misguided women wish to run the government, though they know nothing," he said. "We don't want to kill them. We want to solve this issue with wisdom."

But it could get worse. The prayer leader of the Red Mosque has threatened to unleash suicide bombers if the mosque is attacked by the government.

Flush with the success of the brothel raid, the mosque has set up an Islamic court to hear complaints. On Sunday that court issued its first religious decree, or fatwa, against the country's female tourism minister after she grabbed onto a man after landing from a parachute jump while in France. The two brothers who run the mosque and neighboring school also have demanded that the government start pursuing Islamic law in Pakistan by May 6 -- or else.

Followers have no fear of the government. During the brothel standoff, police detained two male students and two female teachers. Brandishing sticks, hundreds of students protested, grabbed two police vehicles, hit a plainclothes officer and took two policemen hostage for several hours.

In recent weeks, men from the mosque have asked CD shop owners to stop selling music and movies, which they say are un-Islamic. After Friday prayers last week, the mosque burned hundreds of CDs and DVDs that a repentant shop owner delivered. More than 10,000 men pumped their arms around the fire, which sent up plumes of thick black smoke over Islamabad, and shouted "Jihad!" and slogans such as "Those who betray Islam should be treated as traitors."

"If the government does not do its duty, then there is a vacuum created," said Abdul Rashid Ghazi, one of the brothers who runs the mosque and seminary. "When there is a vacuum, something will come in. We are coming in and taking action."

Beliefs migrate to city

Ghazi, whom Musharraf has dismissed as illiterate, has a master's degree in history and speaks English. Sitting on cushions next to a pile of English- and Urdu-language newspapers in his office, he acknowledged that the mosque has weapons but said they were for protection and all were licensed. He also said he believes the Taliban, if given the chance, would have created a model Islamic state in Afghanistan.

Such beliefs and policies are common in the conservative tribal areas of Pakistan. But this mosque is in the heart of Islamabad, the country's modern capital, with advertisements featuring pouty, cleavage-baring women, plays from rival India and Indian music blaring from cars.

Most people in the capital are Muslim, but they have voted for a secular government. Last Thursday about 600 people demonstrated against the Red Mosque, saying it is trying to create a state within a state.

"We want to reject extremism and Talibanism," said Naeem Mirza, director of the Women's Foundation in Islamabad.

But the women clad in black, derogatorily dubbed "ninjas" by some here, set this Islamic campaign apart. The Taliban, regrouping in remote areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan, would sooner lose a battle than send women to the battlefield, or even out of the home.

The women of Jamia Hafsa led the push to shut down the brothel. In late January they took over a nearby public children's library to protest the government's destruction of six mosques and threats to demolish their school, built on public land. The women armed themselves with cane sticks, and once, when a police raid was threatened, took to the streets. One woman was photographed holding a Kalashnikov rifle.

The women said they were not extremists -- the government was extreme, they said, for pursuing anti-Islamic policies and attacking anyone who disagrees. But the women also said they are prepared to die.

"If the government attacks us, we will use suicide bombs," said Amna Adeem, 20. "If the government is peaceful, we will be peaceful."

So far the government has not just been peaceful, it's been almost invisible. One attempted police raid at the library was botched. About 100 men from the mosque were arrested, but no women. All have since been bailed out on minor offenses, police said. And still, the women run the library.

During the kidnapping standoff at the religious school, the police did not go inside. Afterward, no one was arrested.

Women pose dilemma

No police were visible near the Red Mosque's CD bonfire last Friday. But police surrounded the small anti-Red Mosque protest. And law enforcement made it difficult for many people to attend recent demonstrations supporting the suspended chief justice by detaining hundreds before the rally and setting up blockades.

Some critics believe the government has deliberately stoked the Red Mosque controversy to divert attention from the chief justice crisis and remind the West and secular Pakistanis of the fundamentalist Islamic threat that Musharraf has taken on.

The government has discounted that conspiracy theory.

The real problem is the women, officials said. If the police touch a religious woman, much less shove one, even if she's carrying a stick, it could spark protests across the country. And those could be almost impossible to control.

"What we hope is that this is solved peacefully," said a government official who has negotiated with mosque leaders and who spoke on condition of anonymity. "But the extent to which this has gone so far, I don't see it ending that way."


This article was originally published in the Chicago Tribune, 4-11-07