Pakistan’s special forces on Tuesday stormed a counter-terrorism centre in a remote north-western district to free several security officials who were taken hostage earlier this week by a group of detained Pakistani Taliban militants, security officials said.
The operation came after the detainees, who were held for years at the centre in Bannu, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, overpowered their guards on Sunday, seized their weapons and took them hostage.
On Monday, one officer at the centre was reported to have been killed by the hostage-takers.
Pakistani officials tried to negotiate with the hostage-takers but after more than 40 hours special forces stormed the compound, security and intelligence officials said.
By Tuesday, thick black smoke billowed into the sky from inside the compound, after two explosions were heard. Intermittent gunshots were reverberating across the area, the officials said.
It was not immediately clear what had happened to the hostages or the Taliban fighters. No military or government spokesmen were available for comment.
Earlier, officials said there were about 30 Taliban fighters involved in the takeover of the centre. The hostage-takers had demanded a safe passage to the former strongholds of the militant group.
The brazen takeover of the centre on Sunday was a reflection of the government’s inability to exercise control over the remote region along the border with Afghanistan.
The Pakistani Taliban are also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP. They are separate but allied with the Afghan Taliban who seized power in neighbouring Afghanistan last year as US and Nato troops were in the final weeks of their pullout from the country after 20 years of war.
