The Pakistani Taliban on Sunday claimed to have occupied a counter-terrorism center in Bannu and taken several troops and staff hostage, with the government claiming a security operation to oust and apprehend them was still underway.
In a statement, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa spokesperson Muhammad Saif denied the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP)’s claim, maintaining that no militant had infiltrated the compound. “Under interrogation militants snatched weapons from the interrogators and released more prisoners who have all been surrounded. The operation will be completed soon,” he claimed on Sunday night; there had been no change in the situation by Monday afternoon.
Separately, in their own statement, the TTP claimed that prisoners, including its own fighters, at the Bannu counter-terrorism center had taken several officers of the Pakistan Army and the center’s staff hostage. “They [prisoners] have been trying hard since last night to provide safe passage to them [hostages] but the Pakistan Army is not letting go of its ego,” it claimed and rejected media reports that the prisoners were seeking safe passage to Afghanistan.
According to the TTP, the prisoners are instead demanding they be shifted to North or South Waziristan. However, it said, the government had not given a “positive response” to this offer. “The only way to save the Army personnel and prison staff taken hostage is to accept the prisoners’ demands and let them go to North or South Waziristan,” the banned group added.
The Pakistani Taliban said its fighters had been instructed to not surrender to authorities even if their demands were not accepted. They also verified the KP government’s claims that weapons had been snatched from interrogators.
There has been a visible surge in terrorism across Pakistan, but especially in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan last year. The development had been heralded by the federal government led by the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), with then-prime minister Imran Khan describing it as Afghans “breaking the shackles of slavery” and then-interior minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed claiming a “friendly” government was now in power across the border.
Rather than accepting responsibility for the unfolding situation, Khan on Monday blamed the incumbent government for the rise of militancy and alleged they had not deliberated on it—a patently false assertion in light of Parliament debating on each incident of cross-border terrorism, including his government’s bid to enter peace talks with the TTP.