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Last Updated: Friday, 6 July 2007, 23:04 GMT 00:04 UK
Fresh fighting at Pakistan mosque
Pakistani troops arrive at the Red Mosque
Pakistani troops have restricted access to the mosque buildings
Troops in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, have carried out an attack on the Red Mosque where radical Islamist students are under siege.

Two huge explosions were heard overnight from the compound as armoured vehicles moved in.

As a group of students tried to leave the mosque two were killed in an exchange of gunfire.

Several hundred people, including children, have been holding out against the authorities since Tuesday.

The BBC's Shoaib Hasan in Islamabad says a group of students tried to break out of the complex, sparking a co-ordinated assault on three sides by armoured personnel carriers and rangers.

Location map

Two students were killed and at least 10 wounded, four of them seriously.

The two explosions overnight were the biggest so far in the siege and were heard as far as 8km (5 miles) away.

But our correspondent says this has not been a full-scale attack.

Meanwhile Pakistani police have taken control of an Islamic seminary run by clerics from the Red Mosque.

"Police stormed into Jamia Faridia and arrested dozens of students and shifted them to an unknown place", a senior security officer told AFP news agency.

Police said the Jamia Faridia was a "powerhouse" for the Red Mosque and several of its students were involved in the standoff.

The mosque's deputy leader, Abdul Rashid Ghazi, said he would rather die than surrender.


'Plane targeted'




Armoured Personnel Carriers outside the Red Mosque
Pakistani troops have restricted access to the mosque buildings








Smoke rises above Islamabad's Red Mosque

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