Pakistan forces end police station siege, minister says
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A Pakistani policeman checking a car in Bannu on Tuesday, after Taliban militants seized a police station.
PHOTO: AFP
ISLAMABAD - An unknown number of hostages were killed on Tuesday when Pakistan special forces stormed a police station seized by suspected Pakistan Taliban militants at the weekend, the defence minister said.
More than 30 men connected to militant groups including the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) overpowered their jailors on Sunday and snatched weapons.
“The operation has successfully been completed,” Khawaja Muhammad Asif told reporters, adding some hostages had “lost their lives”.
He said special forces moved in when differences broke out between the suspected militants over how to handle the hostages.
The men, who were being held on suspicion of terrorism.
They had demanded safe passage to Afghanistan in return for releasing the hostages – at least eight police officers and military intelligence officials – Muhammad Ali Saif, a spokesman for the provincial Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government, said earlier.
The TTP, separate from the Afghan Taliban but with a similar hardline ideology, said its members were behind the incident and demanded authorities provide them safe passage to border areas.
The police station is within a cantonment area in Bannu, adjacent to Pakistan’s formerly self-governed tribal areas and near the border with Afghanistan.
Local schools were ordered shut on Tuesday out of fear of more kidnappings, a senior government official in the district told AFP.
Offices and roads have closed and checkpoints have been set up around the area.
Pakistan had asked the Taliban in Kabul to help with the release of the hostages, the senior government official told AFP.
Local residents in Bannu said they heard explosions coming from the vicinity of the centre on Tuesday.
The military did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Pakistani authorities on Monday opened talks to try to resolve the stand-off with the militants.
The TTP, which has stepped up attacks since it announced the end of an Afghan Taliban-brokered ceasefire with the government last month, has long used violence in a bid to take over the country and enforce its own harsh brand of Islam. AFP, REUTERS
