BANNU/MARDAN: A senior police official in the northwestern city of Bannu confirmed on Tuesday an operation had been launched to free hostages from local Taliban militants holding up a counterterrorism department (CTD) facility since Sunday.
A spokesperson for the provincial Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government said on Monday authorities had opened talks with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militants inside the CTD center where they had overpowered guards on Sunday evening. But on Tuesday afternoon, local and international media widely reported that an operation to take back the facility had been launched.
It was not immediately clear if the operation was being led by police or the military. Reuters reported the Pakistan army’s elite commando unit, the Special Service Group (SSG), had been called in to carry out the operation but Arab News could not independently confirm this.
“An operation against the Taliban militants at the counterterrorism center has begun,” a senior police official with direct knowledge of the operation told Arab News, declining further details due to “security reasons.”
Video footage shared by an Arab News witness showed plumes of smoke rising from the vicinity of the Bannu military cantonment, where the CTD facility is located. Residents reported hearing firing and loud explosions.
The government announced a “medical emergency” at hospitals in Bannu city, while schools and other educational facilities also remained closed on Tuesday. Barricades were placed on all roads leading up to the military cantonment and the area was completely sealed off to the public and media. The Internet has been shut down for at least two days in the city.
Residents Arab News spoke with expressed fear over the developing situation.
Noor Aslam, village secretary of union counil Mombati Barakzai, said life had come to a standstill in the city.
“Due to mobile phones, all business here has stopped,” he said. “We can’t meet anyone or speak to them.”
“We don’t know when this situation will end,” he said. “I only know that people are worried.”
“DON’T SURRENDER BEFORE THE ENEMY”
A member of the Pakistani Taliban told Reuters on Tuesday the group’s leadership had lost contact with their people in the compound.
“We are told that a military operation has started,” he said.
In a statement released on Monday, the TTP said detainees linked to the group had taken “several military officers and jail staff” hostage at the CTD facility. The group demanded safe passage for its members to Pakistan’s tribal regions of North and South Waziristan.
In a video statement released on Tuesday, TTP chief Mufti Noor Wali Mehsud advised militants inside the CTD center not to “surrender before the enemy under any circumstances.”
“Once (you) have shown honor, sacrifice your life but don’t dishonor the fighters in front of the enemy,” he said in his message. “They [Pakistan government and military] have always deceived us in and out of the jails, [and] have broken their pledge so don’t be deceived by them.”
The TTP, which has stepped up attacks since it announced the end of an Afghan Taliban-brokered cease-fire with the government last month, has long used violence in a bid to take over Pakistan and enforce its own harsh brand of Islam.
The TTP’s siege of the CTD center on Sunday came on the same day four Pakistani police officers were killed and another four critically wounded when suspected militants attacked a police station in Lakki Marwat district in the country’s northwest.
On Monday, a suicide bombing killed at least two passersby and a soldier in the northwestern region of North Waziristan. On Tuesday, the TTP said in a statement it had attacked a police station in Wana city in South Waziristan and killed two policemen and captured weapons but police said only one officer had been wounded.
- Rehmat Mehsud contributed reporting from Peshawar.
