Radical

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- The fate of scores of hostages was still unknown late yesterday after Pakistani commandos fought their way into a heavily fortified radical mosque in the capital, killing the chief cleric and more than 50 armed followers and arresting dozens. At least eight soldiers died in more than 20 hours of fighting that began early in the day and appeared to be winding down after dark. But debate was only beginning over whether the battle for Islamabad's Red Mosque would prove a boon or a body blow to the administration of President Pervez Musharraf, a general whose political standing already was precarious after months of criticism by a pro-democracy movement.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Fears deepened yesterday about the fate of hostages reportedly being held by Islamic militants inside a besieged radical mosque in the heart of the capital. As Pakistani troops encircled the Red Mosque for a fifth day, the cleric in charge declared that he hoped that the standoff, which has left at least two dozen people dead, would help trigger an Islamic revolution in Pakistan. It was not clear how many people were inside the mosque complex, which contains two madrassas, or seminaries, with an enrollment of about 5,000 students.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- After months of whipping his followers into a frenzy of anti-government sentiment, the head cleric at a radical mosque was caught yesterday trying to slip out of his besieged compound clad in a head-to-toe veil known as a burqa, police said. The arrest of Maulana Abdul Aziz came as police and paramilitary troops backed by armored vehicles and helicopters surrounded the mosque, which was the scene Tuesday of a shootout that left as many as 16 people dead. More than 1,100 of Aziz's followers surrendered to authorities yesterday.

TRIPOLI, Lebanon -- The cleric's question echoed off the walls of the mosque in one of Tripoli's poorest neighborhoods - and well beyond. "What is happening to our community?" Sheik Mazen Mohammed cried. "Where are we heading?" Many of Lebanon's Sunni Muslims, especially in the northern part of the country, are asking themselves the same question Mohammed posed during prayers on a recent Friday. The Sunni community has been fractured by a battle between the country's army and an extremist Sunni group inspired by al-Qaida, and an ensuing crackdown by the government against Islamists.

BAGHDAD -- After an unexplained four-month absence, the radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr re-emerged for prayers yesterday at a mosque in southern Iraq, raising questions about his motivations and how his return will affect efforts to stem violence and broker reconciliation between the country's factions. In a sermon delivered to throngs of emotional supporters, the leader of the Mahdi Army militia repeated his demand for the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. But he also struck a nationalistic, inclusive tone by appealing for understanding among Iraq's Shiites, Sunnis and Christians.

BEIRUT -- A new front erupted in Lebanon's simmering political conflict yesterday in the northern city of Tripoli, where running battles between the Lebanese army and a radical new Palestinian organization said to have ties to al-Qaida killed at least 39 people. In the worst internal fighting since the end of Lebanon's civil war 17 years ago, the army battled militants throughout the day in the streets of the port city and on the edges of the Palestinian refugee camp Nahr el-Bared, which late last year fell under the control of a radical group calling itself Fateh al-Islam.

The people running Washington had me worried. To hear them talk, I thought they might craft a bipartisan solution for Social Security by slightly cutting my benefits and raising taxes. Thank goodness it's just babble. "I don't think it's going to go anywhere," says Robert L. Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, which pushes the silly idea that today's generations shouldn't loot the Treasury at the expense of future ones. In February, Rob Portman, President Bush's budget chief, told senators that the Republican White House is "willing to take what are politically difficult steps" to fix Social Security.

American Theocracy: The Peril and Politics of Radical Religion, Oil and Borrowed Money in the 21st Century By Kevin Phillips A former Republican strategist looks broadly and historically at the political world the conservative coalition has constructed over the last several decades, identifying three trends. One is the role of oil in defining American foreign and domestic policy. The second is the intrusion of radical Christianity into politics and government. The third is the levels of debt that both the government and the American people have been accumulating.

Color-Blind Justice Albion Tourgee and the Quest for Racial Equality By Mark Elliott Oxford University Press / 388 pages / $30 For most of his life, Albion Tourgee persevered on "a fool's errand." An advocate of the abolition of slavery, he enlisted in the Army soon after the Confederates fired on Fort Sumter. Severely wounded, captured and released, Tourgee returned to duty as a lieutenant with the 105th Ohio Infantry. He would settle for nothing less than a "complete revolution and renovation" establishing a color-blind society, he wrote in 1863: "For this I am willing to die - for this I expect to die."

Sluggish grocery sales and other financial problems are placing renewed pressure on Dutch conglomerate Royal Ahold NV - the parent of Giant Food supermarkets and U.S. Food Service in Columbia - to fix its continuing troubles. Ahold is suffering from years of ill-fitted mergers, high labor costs, accounting scandals and management decisions that isolated shoppers from its neighborhood grocery stores. A string of weak quarterly sales results convinced Ahold chief executive Anders C. Moberg in July to call for a review of assets to help drive growth.