Taliban prisoners in Pakistan overpower guards and take hostages
Taliban detainees overpowered their guards at a counter-terrorism centre in north-western Pakistan overnight, snatching police weapons, taking hostages and seizing control of the facility.
The incident quickly evolved into a standoff. Pakistani officials later confirmed that one counter-terrorism officer had been killed during the militants’ takeover at the detention centre in Bannu, a district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and part of a former tribal region.
Police and the military scrambled to deploy troops and special forces to the area but by midday on Monday, about 12 hours later, the hostage crisis was ongoing. According to officials, at least 30 Taliban fighters were involved in the takeover and there were possibly as many as 10 hostages.
The brazen action reflected the government’s inability to exercise control over the remote region along the border with Afghanistan. The Pakistani Taliban are a separate group but also allied with the Afghan Taliban, who seized power in the neighbouring country last year as US and Nato troops were in the final stages of their pullout from Afghanistan.
Few other details have emerged about the incident, which started late on Sunday, apparently while police were interrogating the Taliban detainees, according to Mohammad Ali Saif, a spokesperson for the provincial government.
Saif said the place was surrounded and that officials were trying to negotiate with the hostage-takers. He said an operation was under way but did not elaborate.
Authorities enlisted the help of several relatives of the Taliban insurgents in the negotiations, several security officials told the Associated Press. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to talk to reporters.
The officials said some soldiers were also among the hostages. There were concerns that the military could storm the facility if negotiations fail. In a video message circulating on social media, the hostage-takers threatened to kill the officers if their safe passage was not quickly arranged by the government.
Mohammad Khurasani, a spokesperson for the Pakistani Taliban – also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP – confirmed the incident. He said some of the hostage-takers were members of the Pakistani Taliban who had been detained for years in Bannu.
Khurasani said the TTP fighters were demanding safe passage to North or South Waziristan. Those areas were a Taliban stronghold until a wave of military offensives over the past years led to the region being declared clear of insurgents.
Since then, TTP’s top leaders and fighters have been hiding in neighbouring Afghanistan, though the militants still have relatively free rein in patches of the province.
Initially, the hostage-takers demanded in a video message posted on social media that they be airlifted to Afghanistan but Khurasani said that demand had been made by mistake, since their fighters were not aware – due to their prolonged detention – that TTP now “enjoys control in some” parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, near the Afghan border.
The Pakistani Taliban have stepped up attacks on security forces since last month, when they unilaterally ended a month-long ceasefire with the Pakistani government. The violence has strained relations between Pakistan’s and Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers, who had brokered the ceasefire in May.
The TTP has waged an insurgency in Pakistan over the past 15 years, fighting for stricter enforcement of Islamic laws, the release of their members who are in government custody and a reduction of Pakistani military presence in the country’s former tribal regions.
Also on Monday, a roadside bombing targeted a security convoy in restive North Waziristan, killing at least two passersby, police said. No group immediately claimed responsibility for the bombing.
