More than 30 Pakistan Taliban militants were holding several officershostage on Monday after breaking free from custody and seizing a policestation, officials said.
Members of the Tehreek–e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) group — separate from theAfghan Taliban but with a similar hardline Islamist ideology — overpoweredtheir jailers on Sunday and snatched weapons.
The militants, held on suspicion of terrorism, are demanding safe passageto Afghanistan, Muhammad Ali Saif, a spokesman for the provincial KhyberPakhtunkhwa government, said in a statement late Sunday.
A senior government official in Bannu, where the incident is unfolding nearthe border with Afghanistan and Pakistan’s former self-governed tribalareas, said hostages were still being held after a failed operation to freethem.
“During the interrogation, some of them snatched guns from the policemenand later took the entire staff hostage,” he told AFP, on condition ofanonymity.
“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 onthe Afghan border or inside Afghanistan.”
The TTP claimed responsibility for the incident and demanded authoritiesprovide safe passage to border areas.
“Otherwise, the entire responsibility of the situation will be on themilitary,” the TTP said in a statement.
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A video posted to social media, which the government official confirmed tobe from the scene, showed a group of armed men with long beards, with onethreatening to kill all the hostages.
He said they had at least eight hostages, including police and militarystaff.
The TTP emerged in 2007 and carried out a horrific wave of violence inPakistan that ended with a military crackdown from 2014.
Attacks are on the rise again since the Afghan Taliban seized control ofKabul last year but have mostly targeted security forces.
A shaky months-long ceasefire agreed with Islamabad ended last month.
In 2012 and 2013, dozens of heavily armed Taliban fighters freed more than600 prisoners, including hardcore militants, during two sophisticatedovernight attacks on a jail in Bannu town. -APP/AFP
