Shots are fired at Musharraf's plane

ISLAMABAD -- President General Pervez Musharraf survived an apparent assassination attempt yesterday when shots were fired at his aircraft as it took off from a military base, authorities and witnesses said.

It was not immediately clear whether there was any connection between the shooting and the ongoing siege of a radical mosque in the capital by Pakistani troops. At least 19 people are reported to have died in the mosque confrontation, which began Tuesday.

Pakistan has been gripped by a sense of crisis over the past four months as a pro democracy movement has challenged Musharraf's attempts to sideline the chief justice of the Supreme Court, who might have posed an obstacle to the president's efforts to secure another term of leadership unchallenged.

Despite the turmoil, the Bush administration has stood by Musharraf, who is considered a key ally in the fight against the Taliban and other Islamic insurgents in Pakistan and in Afghanistan.

American policy makers believe that the toppling of the general, who seized power in a bloodless coup eight years ago, could create a dangerous power vacuum in nuclear-armed Pakistan, which is home to many militant groups.

Musharraf's aircraft came under fire as it took off from the Chaklala air base in Rawalpindi, a garrison city adjoining the capital. Police said two antiaircraft guns and a light machine gun were seized from a house that lay directly beneath the flight path of the base and also below the path of planes arriving and departing from Islamabad's international airport.

The president's plane landed without incident in Turbat, in Pakistan's south . Security officials in Rawalpindi said 25 light machine-gun rounds were apparently fired toward the aircraft.

After the shooting, State Department spokesman Tom Casey repeated US support for the Pakistani leader, saying Musharraf is working hard to confront extremism and to build a moderate Islamic state in Pakistan.

Musharraf has been the target of at least three previous assassination bids, all of which were believed to have been coordinated by Islamic militants. Two of the attempts on his life, in the form of bombs aimed at his convoy, occurred weeks apart, in late 2003 and early 2004.

In the capital, paramilitary and army troops backed by armored vehicles and helicopters kept a tight cordon around the Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, where authorities believe dozens of militants are holed up.

More than 1,200 people, many of them teenage students from both a male and a female Islamic seminary inside the complex, have surrendered to authorities since fighting with security forces erupted Tuesday.

The mosque's senior clerics, two brothers, had for the past six months posed an open challenge to Musharraf's government, denouncing his alliance with the United States and demanding the imposition of Sharia, or Islamic law, in Pakistan. The chief cleric, Abdul Aziz, was seized Wednesday as he tried to flee in women's garb. His brother, Abdul Rashid Ghazi, told a private television station that those holed up in the mosque would not turn themselves over to authorities. Officials have turned off electricity and water supplies to the mosque. Pakistan's interior secretary, Syed Kamal Shah said the government guaranteed that those surrendering would not be tortured or humiliated.

Material from the Associated Press was included in this report.