ISLAMABAD, Oct 3, 2007 (AFP) - Pakistan's Red Mosque reopened on Wednesday nearly three months after a bloody military raid, with its deposed head urging thousands of supporters to continue his struggle for Islamic sharia law.

Around 5,000 people packed the mosque in central Islamabad to hear a recorded message by radical cleric Abdul Aziz, who was captured in July while trying to flee the building while dressed in a woman's burqa.

ISLAMABAD, Oct 3, 2007 (AFP) - Pakistani authorities will Wednesday reopen Islambad's Red Mosque on the orders of the Supreme Court, officials here said, three months it was closed in the wake of a blood-soaked army operation.

Government troops stormed the radical mosque on July 10 after besieging Al-Al Qaeda militants holed up inside the building and a neighbouring girls' Islamic school, leaving more than 100 people dead.

COLOGNE, Germany, Aug 3, 2007 (AFP) - Plans to build one of the biggest mosques in Europe here have Christian leaders and the far-right up in arms over the Muslim community's bold new assertion of its presence in Germany.

An imposing but elegant new building is to go up in the Ehrenfeld district of Cologne, a city that is 12 percent Muslim but is best known for its spectacular Gothic cathedral.

Currently, most Muslims pray in small, often shabby quarters spread throughout the city and often hidden from plain view.

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, July 29, 2007 (AFP) - Pro-Taliban militants have occupied a mosque in a Pakistani tribal area and named it after the radical Red Mosque where more than 100 people died in clashes between militants and security forces, residents said Sunday.

Around 150 armed masked men late Saturday took control of Turangzai Sahib Mosque in Lakaro village in the lawless Mohmand tribal district bordering Afghanistan, some 60 kilometres (37 miles) northwest of Peshawar, and renamed it the Red Mosque, they said.

BERLIN, July 29, 2007 (AFP) - Exiled former Pakistani premier Benazir Bhutto warned of a looming Islamist revolution mounted from the country's religious schools, or madrassas, in a German magazine interview to be published Monday.

Bhutto said she was planning her return to Pakistan this year to help stabilise the country in the face of the extremist threat.

'The Red Mosque was just a warm-up for what will happen if the religious schools are not disarmed,' Bhutto told the newsweekly Focus.

ISLAMABAD, July 28, 2007 (AFP) - Pakistan boosted security on Saturday fearing further attacks a day after a suicide bombing during protests at Islamabad's pro-Taliban Red Mosque killed 14 people.

Authorities were also investigating how the attacker was able to strike at a crowded market in the heart of the capital, the 13th suicide blast to hit the country since a bloody army raid on the mosque on July 10.

ISLAMABAD, July 27, 2007 (AFP) - A suicide bomber targeting policemen killed 14 people near the Red Mosque in the Pakistani capital Friday, as the reopening of the complex after this month's bloody army raid descended into violence.

The attack came as pro-Taliban students occupied the mosque in the heart of Islamabad during Friday prayers, sparking clashes with security forces. The radicals were cleared from the building after the blast.

ISLAMABAD, July 27, 2007 (AFP) - A suicide bomber blew himself up among a group of policemen near the Red Mosque in the Pakistani capital on Friday, killing at least 12 people and wounding 30 others, a security official said.

'A man detonated explosives strapped to his body among two rows of Punjab police constabulary members who were there on duty because of the unrest at the Red Mosque,' the security official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

ISLAMABAD, July 27, 2007 (AFP) - A suicide bomber blew himself up among a group of policemen near the Red Mosque in the Pakistani capital on Friday, killing at least 10 people and wounding many others, a security official said.

'A man detonated explosives strapped to his body among two rows of Punjab police constabulary members who were there on duty because of the unrest at the Red Mosque,' the security official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

'At least ten people have been killed and many wounded.'

ISLAMABAD, July 27, 2007 (AFP) - A loud blast was heard Friday near Pakistan's Red Mosque and ambulances were rushing towards the scene, AFP correspondents said.

Blood and pieces of flesh were strewn at the site of the blast, close to one of the main markets in Islamabad, a correspondent said. Officials said the cause was not yet known.

The site was where police officers earlier gathered during clashes with radical Islamic students who occupied the Red Mosque after its official reopening.