Profile: Abdul Rashid Ghazi

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Profile: Abdul Rashid Ghazi

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This may not fit one's mental image of a militant Islamist, a jihadi.

But for the hundreds of hardliners holed up inside
Islamabad's radical Red Mosque (Lal Masjid), Abdul Rashid Ghazi is the
leader.

He has come a long way since his days as a student of
history with moderate views, who had a relatively westernised lifestyle
and worked, for a time, at the UN's culture organisation, Unesco.

His life changed when his father Abdullah Aziz, who
headed the Red Mosque, was shot dead by a lone gunman, believed to be
from a rival Islamic group.

He joined his elder brother, Abdul Aziz, who took over the mosque in 1998 and nominated him as his deputy.

This is where Abdul Rashid Ghazi's route to hardline Islam becomes less open to public scrutiny.