The top cleric at a besieged mosque in the Pakistan capital accused security forces today of killing more than 70 of his students, but said he and his supporters preferred martyrdom to capture. Explosions and intense gunfire continued overnight and Saturday as thousands of troops ringing the Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, attempted to end a standoff but held back from an all-out assault.

As a student, teachers said he showed no signs of Islamic militancy. Now Pakistani cleric Abdul Rashid Ghazi sleeps with a Kalashnikov by his bed and has vowed to die in his besieged mosque. The bespectacled, articulate 43-year-old has led hundreds of pro-Taliban followers since his elder brother Abdul Aziz, the head of Islamabad's Red Mosque, was caught trying to flee the complex in a burqa.