BANNU: Tensions were high in the northwestern Pakistani town of Bannu on Monday evening, almost 24 hours after several Pakistani Taliban detainees overpowered their guards at a counter-terrorism department (CTD) center and seized control of the facility.
The takeover took place late on Sunday and evolved into a standoff on Monday, when a spokesperson for the provincial Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government said authorities had opened talks with the hostage-taking militants inside the jail.
The CTD center is housed in Bannu’s military cantonment, where police and military police officials stood guard on Monday evening, and told Arab News journalists would not be allowed access. The streets outside the cantonment were completely deserted and there was no movement of people or vehicles as far as the eye could see.
Outside the cantonment, Bannu residents Arab News spoke to expressed fear over the standoff between militants and the government, and said they had little knowledge of what was going on due to a "blanket internet shutdown."
"There is fear and panic in the area, people can't even speak to one another due to the prevailing fear,” Javed Hussain, a 25-year-old medical practitioner, told Arab News, refusing to speak on camera.
"They've shut down internet services in the area ... It's rare, hardly ever happens.”
Another resident, a 32-year-old shopkeeper Arab News spoke to, said most residents were “unaware” of what was happening due to the internet shutdown.
"We don't know what is happening," the resident said, declining to be named due to fear for his security. "Internet, which isn't usually shut down in the area, has been suspended. There's no coverage on TV as well so residents in the area know nothing about what's going on.”
Earlier on Monday, social media videos that surfaced appeared to show a hostage reportedly held by Pakistani Taliban (TTP) insurgents, making an appeal to authorities for a peaceful resolution to the ongoing standoff.
He did not specify how many detainees there were.
“We appeal to people that the issue be resolved peacefully and we have requested the Taliban to avoid firing or use of force,” the man, who did not identify himself, could be seen saying in the video that showed at least two men carrying guns standing guard over a group of men.
In a statement released on Monday, the TTP group said prisoners had taken “several military officers and jail staff” hostage at the CTD facility in Bannu.
A spokesperson for the KP government told media the facility had been surrounded and an operation launched to take back control of the building would be “completed soon.” He denied the jail had been infiltrated but said prisoners there snatched weapons from interrogators and helped release other inmates.
Mohammad Ali Saif, a spokesman for the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial government, told Reuters authorities had opened talks to try to resolve the standoff with the militants.
He said authorities had not yet received a response from the Pakistani Taliban, but relatives of the militants and tribal elders from the area had also been involved in initiating talks.
At least one counter-terrorism official was killed by the militants, Saif told Reuters, who according to authorities had snatched weapons off their guards while under interrogation.
Several significant TTP members were present at the center, the spokesman added. He did not say how many security personnel were being held hostage. An intelligence officer told Reuters, however, that there were six hostages - four from the military and two from counter-terrorism.
The hostage situation came a day after the TTP claimed the killings of four policemen in the nearby district of Lakki Marwat. On Monday evening, the Pakistan military said a suicide bombing targeted a security convoy in restive the North Waziristan region, killing at least two passersby and a soldier. In the southwestern town of Khuzdar in Balochistan province, officials said 13 people had been injured in a blast at a busy marketplace. No one has claimed responsibility for the two attacks on Monday,
Pakistan has been fighting an insurgency by the TTP, which is affiliated with but separate from the Afghanistan Taliban. The Taliban regime in Afghanistan had been trying to broker talks between the Pakistani government and the TTP, which broke down earlier this year when the group called off a ceasefire and vowed to restart attacks.
In its statement on Sunday, the TTP rejected media reports that prisoners were seeking safe passage to Afghanistan, saying the demand was to shift them to tribal areas in North or South Waziristan. The banned outfit said the government had not given a “positive response” in return.
“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 Pakistani Taliban warned.
Bannu district sits just outside North Waziristan, a tribal region bordering Afghanistan that has long been a safe haven for militants.
Pakistan's military has conducted several offensives in the tribal regions since 2009, forcing militants and their leadership to run into neighboring Afghan districts where Islamabad says they have set up training centers to plan and launch attacks inside Pakistan. Kabul denies the charge.
