Several Pakistani Taliban detainees have managed to overpower their guards at a counter-terrorism centre in north-western Pakistan, snatching police weapons and taking control of the facility, officials have said.
The militants at the detention centre in Bannu, a district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and part of a former tribal region, also took police and others inside the compound hostage, a local government spokesman said.
Officials say at least 30 Taliban fighters are involved in the takeover and that there could be as many as 10 hostages being held.
The action reflects the Pakistani government’s inability to exercise control at all times over the remote region along the border with Afghanistan.
The Pakistani Taliban are a separate group but also allied with the Afghan Taliban, who seized power in the neighbouring country last year, as US and Nato troops were in the final stages of their pullout from Afghanistan.
Few other details have emerged about the incident, which started late on Sunday – apparently while police were interrogating the Taliban detainees, according to officials.
By Monday morning, Pakistan had dispatched military troops and special police forces to the area as security official were trying to negotiate with the hostage-takers.
Officials said the place was surrounded and that an operation is under way.
Authorities were still in talks with the hostage-takers, enlisting the help of several relatives of the Taliban insurgents, security officials told The Associated Press.
The officials said some soldiers were also among the hostages.
There are concerns that the military could storm the facility if negotiations fail. In a video message circulating on social media, the hostage-takers threatened to kill the officers if their safe passage is not quickly arranged by the government.
Mohammad Khurasani, a spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban – also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP – confirmed the incident. He said some of the hostage-takers were members of the Pakistani Taliban who had been detained for years.
Mr Khurasani said the TTP fighters were demanding safe passage to North or South Waziristan.
Those areas were a Taliban stronghold until a wave of military offensives over the past years declared the region cleared of insurgents.
Since then, TTP’s top leaders and fighters have been hiding in neighbouring Afghanistan, though the militants still have a relatively free hand in areas of the province.
