By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: Special security forces on Wednesday killed all militants, who seized a counter-terrorism centre two days after they had held government officers and detainees hostages in the Bannu district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, defence minister said.
Minister Khawaja Asif told parliament that all the hostages had been rescued by the soldiers, who also lost two commandos in the operation. Two hostages were killed by the militants.
“This operation was initiated on December 20 at 12:30pm by the Special Service Group and all (33) terrorists were killed,” Asif said. “The entire CTD compound was cleared by 2:30pm.”
Asif said 15 security forces were wounded in Tuesday’s operation. According to reports, the special operation lasted for 15 minutes
“The unfortunate aspect of this is that terrorism is again making strides in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan… there is clear evidence that terrorists from across the border or locally are rising again in KP and Balochistan.”
The militants were members of the Tehreek–e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). They were detainees at the centre, held on suspicion of terrorism for years.
Taliban militants took control of the center on Sunday and demanded safe passage to Afghanistan in return for the release of hostages. The hostages were taken after one militant hit a guard on the head with a brick and snatched his weapon.
Authorities had earlier on Monday opened talks to resolve the standoff, but 40-hour-long efforts to negotiate yielded no results.
Mohammad Ali Saif, a spokesman in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, said Taliban militants were given a chance to surrender before the operation but they refused. Commandos from the Pakistan Army’s Special Services Group (SSG) stormed the compound after the failed negotiation.
Footage aired on private television channels on Tuesday showed plumes of smoke rising in the air from the CTD compound.
The situation in Bannu remained tense as police and security agencies asked residents to remain indoors. A security alert was issued earlier and all schools and colleges in the Bannu district remained closed on Tuesday. Mobile services in the cantonment area and the surrounding areas were also suspended.
The hostage-takers had released a number of videos in the past three days, demanding a safe exit from Pakistan and urging the people of Bannu to come forward to help them.
The TTP set up as an umbrella group of several militant outfits in 2007, last month called off a ceasefire agreed upon with the government in June and ordered its militants to stage terrorist attacks across the country.
The group has been blamed for several deadly attacks across Pakistan, including an attack on army headquarters in 2009, assaults on military bases, the 2008 bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, and the massacre of 134 children at a military-run school in the northwestern city of Peshawar in December 2014.
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