Two policemen killed as Taliban militants take hostages in northwest Pakistan
At least two policemen were killed and many others injured when Pakistani Taliban militants seized a counter-terrorism centre and took some people hostage in the Bannu district of Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
According to media outlets citing Pakistani police reports, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militants on Sunday sneaked into the Bannu cantonment in the restive province and freed wanted militants jailed in the compound.
More than 30 militants then took control of a section of the compound, holding the security personnel belonging to the Counter-terrorism Department (CTD) hostage.
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A resident in Bannu, which is near the border with Afghanistan, confirmed gunshots and explosions were heard.
In the meantime, a senior government official in Bannu said the hostages were still being held after a military operation to free them had failed.
"We are in negotiations with the central leaders of the Pakistani Taliban in Afghanistan," Muhammad Ali Saif, a spokesman for the provincial Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government, said on Monday, adding that the relatives of the militants had also been involved in initiating talks with the hostage-takers.
Saif, in a statement late Sunday, said that the hostage-takers were demanding safe passage into Afghanistan.
"During the interrogation, some of them snatched guns from the policemen and later took the entire staff hostage," he told AFP, on condition of anonymity.
"They want us to provide them safe passage via a ground route or by air. They want to take all the hostages with them and to release them later on the Afghan border or inside Afghanistan."
The TTP claimed responsibility for the incident and demanded authorities provide safe passage to border areas.
"Otherwise, the entire responsibility of the situation will be on the military," the TTP said in a statement.
He said they had at least eight hostages, including police and military staff.
A video posted to social media, which the government official confirmed to be from the hostage scene, showed a group of armed men threatening to kill all the hostages.
In 2012 and 2013, dozens of heavily armed Taliban fighters freed more than 600 prisoners, including hardcore militants, during two sophisticated overnight operations targeting a prison in Bannu.
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