33 hostages killed after prolonged anti-terror operation in Pakistan

33 hostages were killed on Tuesday in an attack by Pakistani special forces to free the Bannu police station in the country’s northwest, which had been held by suspected Taliban militants since Sunday.

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Two Pakistani special forces personnel were killed and “10 to 15” injured during the operation, which began around noon, the defense minister said.

“All the hostages were released”, and Khawaja Muhammad Asif explained that “the operation was successful”.

On Sunday, more than 30 members of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) group arrested on suspicion of terrorism seized weapons from officers who interrogated them at the Bannu police station in northwest Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

The minister said special forces intervened when disagreements erupted within the Taliban over how to handle the hostages.

The hostages have demanded safe passage to Afghanistan in exchange for the release of at least eight police officers and military intelligence officers, said Muhammad Ali Saif, spokesman for the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial government.

“In the premises of the Anti-Terrorism Department (…) 33 terrorists belonging to various groups were detained and his weapon was confiscated,” explained the same source.

Schools, offices and roads in the area were closed on Tuesday and checkpoints were set up in the surrounding area.

The TTP claimed responsibility for the hostage-taking in the territory, which borders heavily entrenched Afghanistan, and said two police officers were killed.

A spokesman for them told AFP that special forces suffered heavy casualties and were unable to enter the police station.

Pakistani officials have asked Afghan officials to help free the hostages, a senior government official said on condition of anonymity.

The TTP, separate from the Afghan Taliban but driven by the same ideology, ended a tenuous ceasefire with Islamabad on November 28 and vowed to launch attacks across Pakistan.

In the town of Wana, at least 200 kilometers south of Bannu, at least 50 Pakistani Taliban militants attacked a police station overnight from Monday to Tuesday.

The group locked up the police and seized weapons before Border Force troops regained control. The TTP claimed responsibility for the attack and claimed that two police officers were killed. Officials have not officially acknowledged the attack.

Between its formation in 2007 and 2014, the TTP carried out countless attacks that bled Pakistan.

It then weakened and reemerged for more than a year, buoyed by the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan in August 2021.